Chuck VS The Spooks
by Neale
Summary: Another alternative origins AU story. Suburbia
1. Chapter 1

**The jury's still out as to whether New Kids On The Block is going to go anywhere, if not this may be the next story. If NKOTB flies, this will probably be the next one after that.**

 **This is another yet Alternate Origins story. I offered a bone to Jill in the last story (Not that! Get your minds out of the gutter! ;^), so I think it's time to give Langston his time in the sun, as I think he's starting to look a little pale. That's right kiddies, Langston Graham gets to be one of the good guys in this story.**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed, this isn't real and it certainly ain't no Disney Princess story!**

Moscow – September 2007

When the Armageddon phone hidden in her night stand started ringing in the early hours of the morning, Mary snapped into full consciousness, and her heart was full of dread as she hastily ripped the drawers out of the night stand to get to where it was stashed away. They called it the Armageddon phone because they wouldn't use it unless it was the end of the world.

She grabbed the phone and answered it with a "DA?"

The voice on the phone was one that she hadn't heard in over ten years. "Mary, it's Lang, get your arse back here! They're going after your boy!" With that he hung up and she started to shake as she sat there with her head down.

Anyone who saw her might have thought that she was crying until she raised her head. What her face showed was pure rage, enough that any rational person would have run from the carnage promised by that look.

Mary leapt into action, moving about the room quickly and purposely without turning on the light as she threw clothes, money, travel documents, weapons and phones into the bag on the bed. She got dressed and straightened up the room before she slipped out of the room, and hence the entire Volkoff compound, as if she were a wraith.

Though the older Lada Samara parked behind a business about four or five kilometres away from the Volkoff compound looked as though it was being held together with string and bailing wire, it started surprisingly easily, and she drove away quietly into the night.

On the outskirts of Moscow there was a small airfield which looked all but abandoned, but it was just possible to see that there was a light on in one of the hangars if you knew where to look. She drove the Samara up to the hangar and parked out the front, smiling when the light went out as she drove up. Getting out of the car, she went to the smaller door and stood off to one side as she knocked and called quietly in Russian " _Ivan, it is Marika._ "

The door unlatched and she slowly opened it, standing where she could be seen. After a few moments a man rushed out, sweeping the area with an AS VAL assault rifle. When he saw that the area was clear he hustled her inside without a word, shutting the door behind them and turning on the lights.

As the lights came on, the L-39 Albatros that he began prepping when she called him from the car dominated the hangar. He asked in Russian. _"Marika, what is going on, why do you need the jet?"_

She looked grim as she answered. _"My friends back home just called to say that the CIA are going after my son so I need to come home, how much longer before it is ready Ivan?"_

Ivan was outraged _"No more than thirty minutes, but why would those bastards go after your boy?"_

" _I do not know my friend, that is why I need to get back. I will fly the Albatros to Vilnius and then get a commercial flight into Canada, fly domestic across to Vancouver and then enter the United States in Seattle. Once I am there I can contact my friends and find out what is going on."_

Ivan nodded _"You make tea, I will get the jet ready!"_

True to his word, the jet was readied, fueled up and running within half an hour. Mary embraced him and kissed him and then he hoisted her into the cockpit, squeezing her shoulder and telling her _"Save your boy!"_ before he closed the canopy.

Mary kept the jet low and avoided towns as she flew across Belarus and into Lithuania, putting it down there at another out of the way airstrip with nothing but the moonlight to light the way. Ivan had called ahead and another friend was waiting for her. He turned the lights on in the hangar to guide her in as she taxied up, and as soon as she cut the engine he shut the doors.

They'd closed everything up within fifteen minutes and drove back to his place, and a couple of hours later she woke on the couch to him and his wife talking. She told them what she'd told Ivan, as that was as much as she knew, and they got her onto the next flight to Montreal as soon as they had the details of her Canadian passport. With that done, they also arranged the Montreal to Vancouver and Vancouver to Seattle flights under her other identities for her.

With the time zone differences, the twelve and a half hour flight effectively arrived in Montreal five and a half hours after departing from Vilnius. Being early in the morning it didn't take long to get through customs, but she hardly had time to change her clothes, appearance and identity before she was on the flight to Vancouver. Once again the time zones effectively cut the five and a half hour flight to two and a half hours. Another quick change job had her onto the flight to Seattle and an hour later she was back in the USA for the first time in years.

It had been less than twenty four hours since she was woken by the phone call from Langston when she got through U.S. Customs, and she only hoped that she'd been quick enough to get ahead of whatever was coming after Charles.

* * *

Once she'd changed identities again she booked herself onto a flight to Los Angeles and bought a few pre-paid phones (it was SO much easier than the old way to get burner phones) to call Langston to find out what the hell was going on. His answer of "I'm just heading into a meeting, Di has been wanting you to come to dinner, why don't you work the details out with her?" said that someone was listening in, so she got off the call quickly. "Oh sorry Honey, I'll call her, see you then, bye."

She stripped the phone and deposited the pieces in different trash receptacles on the way to another part of the airport where she pulled out another pre-paid and called Diane. Diane had been expecting her call and quickly gave her the rundown. "Oh Honey, I'm so glad to hear from you! It's been such a mess here, Bruce has gone off the rails and got himself mixed up with those people he was involved with in Omaha again. He even sent some of that stuff to his college buddy, John was so angry he said that he's dead to him. On top of that Samantha's run off to the west coast chasing some boy and John's gone after her! I just don't know what to do with myself!"

It was a struggle for Mary to keep her tone moderately concerned without showing her real reaction as she responded. "Now don't you worry Sweetie, I'm sure that Bruce will come to his senses, and Samantha's a good girl, she's just a little boy crazy. Everything will be fine, I'm sure. Look, I'll be in town the week after next, why don't we catch up for dinner and see if we can forget about our kids for the night?"

"Yes, that would be wonderful! Give me a call when you know you'll be here!"

"Will do Sweetie, now don't you worry yourself none, I'm sure it will all come out fine."

After she hung up, she was on autopilot as she stripped the phone and deposited the pieces in different bins, because what Diane had told her had chilled her to the core.

That bastard Bryce Larkin had attacked her son again, sending him the Intersect program, that abomination which had come out of the CIA's MKUltra program that Stephen had been working on. Those bastards at the CIA had convinced everyone that they'd scrapped their mind control program back in seventy three when in fact all they'd done was give up on trying to use drugs and chemicals and started looking into using electronic mechanisms instead.

Obviously John Casey, who was generally known as the NSA's Lethal Weapon, had killed Larkin, but not before he'd managed to send that thing to Charles, and now Casey had been sent after Charles by the NSA. On top of that, Emma's girl Samantha, who was the CIA's Enforcer under the name of Sarah Walker now, had been sent after Charles as well. Langston wouldn't have known who was being sent after Charles when he called, but that wouldn't have been what he was warning her about when he called her though, his warning would have mainly been about that Intersect program.

That was the worst of this, not knowing whether Charles had actually received and loaded that abomination, because the later versions of it had destroyed or killed everyone they had been tested on. Larkin obviously hadn't been content with trying to destroy Charles' life, now he had tried to kill him! Yes, Lang had been right in calling the Armageddon phone, because she could be looking at the end of her world if that had happened!

* * *

Mary had a few stiff drinks in the half hour before her flight to Los Angeles took off, and kept drinking on the three hour flight. She had to concede that the flight attendants may have been right to cut her off as she'd been a bit loud when she told the sleazy business man what she'd do to him if he didn't stop trying to proposition her. Even with the grudging respect she'd had for the fact that he was at least coming on to someone age appropriate for him, her reaction had been enough to scare him into wetting his pants. She really needed to get herself under control.

Arriving in Los Angeles, she got a rental car at the airport and headed straight to the hospital where Eleanor was working. She had to make sure that that idiot who was screwing her daughter while he was supposed to be watching her and Charles for Alexei Volkoff, care of the SVU, didn't find out that she was in Los Angeles. For that matter she also needed to keep an eye out for his mother, because she was the real agent, she'd just taught Devon enough seduction techniques to manage women so he could get the information that her masters, or more to the point in this case Volkoff, wanted.

Mary snorted to herself at that, sending a trained seducer probably would have worked if Eleanor hadn't been trained better than his mother was, but she'd seen him coming. She couldn't really fault her daughter for using him as a state supplied sex device to make up for the distinct lack of any love life that she'd had through the years that she'd spent raising both herself and Charles, but she couldn't help wishing that she'd held out for what she deserved rather than sleeping with that idiot.

She disguised herself again and set it up so that she'd present like someone suffering from a mild stroke so that Eleanor would be the one allocated to examine her when she stumbled into the Emergency Room. Eleanor saw through her disguise and got her into a private examination room ASAP. After she'd confirmed that Devon was off duty at the moment and they'd had their reunion, Mary got to the point and asked about Charles.

Her heart was in her mouth when Eleanor confirmed that Charles had indeed received and loaded the Intersect, but Ellie rushed to reassure her that he was OK. They'd both recognised the Intersect for what it was from what they'd been told, but it hadn't effected him the way it had everyone else, the worst he'd gotten from it was a terrible headache that they managed to blame on that idiot Morgan Grimes spiking the punch at his birthday party the night before.

When she asked whether Samantha and John Casey had arrived yet, Ellie grinned. "Samantha has arrived, from what they told me they both got a shock when she walked into the Buy More and they recognised each other, because as you know he was using Kowalski back when Uncle Joe took her away and the picture they gave her hadn't been clear enough for her to identify him, but as soon as she walked in she knew it was him. She said that as soon as she looked in his eyes and saw him smile, she only just stopped herself calling him Charlie. Luckily the rest of them just took his staring at her without saying a word as him being stunned by her beauty, and Mom, she IS a beauty! She's even lovelier than Aunty Em was when we were little!"

"Anyway, she left him a card to call her and I ducked out of the hospital on my break so that the three of us could meet up last night away from everyone else to work out what the hell was going on. She got a hell of a surprise when she found out that Uncle Lang was both your and Aunty Em's friend, though she did say that his instructions about making sure that she didn't do anything rash before she had all the facts made more sense now. She said that this Casey guy should be here by now that she hasn't seen him yet. She was worried about that because she said that he's the one that the NSA sends in to clean up its messes, should we be worried?"

Mary hugged her "No, you'll be fine, he's part of the Spooks and it's your Auntie Di who he's reporting to on this. She also knows that Samantha, Sarah, is the one who's been sent by the CIA, so she would have made it clear that he was to ensure that neither she or Charles are harmed. Is there any way for me to talk to her before she has a run in with him though?"

"I've got her number, I can try and get her to meet you somewhere?"

"Yes please Sweetie, this whole thing is like a powder keg at the moment and I want to make sure that none of you get hurt. The best way I can think to do that is to fill her in on everything we know. Forewarned is forearmed as they say."

She hesitated. "Also. I won't be able to stay long Honey, I dropped everything to get here when Uncle Lang called to say that they were coming after Charles, but once I've made sure that he's, well all of you are OK, I'll have to get back before Volkoff starts looking for me. I also can't risk Devon seeing me and reporting it back to Russia, so I think that I'll have to head back tomorrow. I can explain disappearing for two or three days by saying that I just had to have some time to myself, but any more than that would be difficult. I'll try to make sure that I see you and Charles again before I leave, but it will be tight, so try and keep tomorrow as free as you can."

"OK Mom, I don't want you to go but I understand. Now I'll call her to try and set something up, but there's one thing I have to tell you first. The way they were looking at each other, it was incredible! They never want to be apart again. I've never been so dissatisfied with the walking sex toy as I was when I saw their palpable need for one another. I guess what I'm trying to say is don't push her, don't try to test her Mom, she loves him and he loves her, far more than they did when they were kids. If you push her too hard I'm afraid that you could lose Chuck."

Mary had a tear in her eye as she nodded her acceptance of what her daughter was saying, and Ellie picked up the phone to call Sarah. They set up a time and place for Mary to meet her, then she and Ellie said their goodbyes and Mary headed out to meet with her possible future daughter in law.

* * *

Sarah recognised her Auntie Mary immediately, and Mary saw what Eleanor had been saying, because as beautiful as Emma had been when they were younger, her daughter surpassed her. That reminded her of something else that she had to discuss with her, as Emma was only down in San Diego, they had to see each other before Sarah left again.

They spoke for over an hour, and Mary explained as much as she could to her about what was happening, what this program that Charles had loaded into his head was and did, and who her extended family were, the members of the Spooks.

Mary explained that they'd been a group of CIA and other Field Agents and Analysts who kept crossing paths back in the seventies, eighties and nineties and became friends. At first, they'd just been meeting to swap stories over drinks but it had become more than that. While there were many more involved now, the initial members had been Bryan Mills, a CIA Field Agent in the SOG. Diane Beckman, a DCS Field Agent. Mary Harrison, a CIA Field Agent. Stephen Kowalski, a CIA Scientist. Emma Bukoska, a CIA Analyst. Joe Blake, a CIA Field Agent. Langston Graham, a CIA Field Agent. Charlene Baltimore, a CIA Field Agent attached to a black ops operation with the State Department. William Graham, an FBI Special Agent and Jack Ryan, a CIA Analyst. Others joined later but they were the original Spooks.

"I married Stephen when I was pregnant with Eleanor and she was born in February seventy eight, then three and half years later Charles was born in September eighty one."

"Di got pregnant to Bry Mills, but didn't find out about it until after he'd been sent on a long term deep cover assignment. The CIA told her that he'd died on assignment when she tried to contact him to tell him about the baby and she fell apart, so she gave the baby up for adoption when she was born in June seventy eight. Bry came back after Eighteen months and they tried to find their daughter, but the family who adopted her had been killed in a car crash."

"There was no mention of their daughter so it was presumed that she'd died as well, Di and Bry's relationship couldn't stand the strain of losing their daughter that way so they broke up. A few years ago her birth certificate showed up in DEA deep cover profile though. We haven't been able to track her down yet because she keeps going from one deep cover identity to the next, but we're still looking for her."

"The next one to come along was you, of course, Emma got pregnant with you and married Joe, and you were born in May eighty two."

"We had a few others join the Spooks in the eighties and nineties, Roan Montgomery, a CIA Field Agent. Jeffrey Biddle, an NSA Technical Analyst. John Casey, a DCS Field Agent. Gertrude Verbanski, a KGB Field Operative. Robin Cunnings, a CIA Field Agent. Sydney Prince, a CIA Field Agent and Alex Forrest, a DCS Field Agent. We also made associations with other people around the world, some of those were the people who helped me get back here when Lang called me."

She made no bones about the fact that she loathed Sarah's father for taking her and disappearing the way he did in eighty nine while her mother was away working on the big operation that they had running in Panama for months. When she finally managed to come home and they'd disappeared, it almost broke her. They'd all tried to help Emma search for her, but they later found that her father had changed their names a dozen times while they moved across the country. They kept getting further and further behind them as they discovered and investigated the identities they shed, until they just had to accept they they'd never manage to catch them that way.

"We had another problem then, because when Emma disappeared to chase you across the country, someone in the CIA had decided that she was a security risk because of the sensitivity of the information she had in her head as their best analyst, and they had a burn notice issued on her, so she had to disappear completely."

"The plan had been for her to lay low until the burn notice was lifted and then come back and explain what had happened, but it was changed to a permanent termination notice when the powers that be decided that she knew enough to blow the story that the government was using to justify itself on the Panama operation out of the water. That meant that she could never go back to being Emma Blake, so she became Emma LaBeau, a librarian from New Orleans."

They were running out of time, so Mary skimmed through the rest. She covered how about six months after her father took her away, the ones running the project that Stephen was working on demanded a practical demonstration of the Agent-X program which was the first generation of the new technology about a month before Charles turned nine. Stephen had been against it but they somehow got one of the other scientists to try it. When Hartley loaded it though, his personality wasn't what it was supposed to be, he was more violent.

"They sent him into Russia to see how well the imprinted personality would hold up, and then sent an agent in to get him out six months later when it finished. We lost touch with the agent and I was sent in to see what happened to him. I found that he'd been killed and that the Agent-X program hadn't finished, Hartley WAS Alexei Volkoff now and he seemed far crazier than he'd been at the start, he was totally paranoid."

"He didn't trust me either, but he must have remembered me at some level because he didn't kill me, instead he made me his right hand and wouldn't let me leave. I was making my plans to get out when he showed me the file he had on Stephen, Eleanor and Charles and told me that he knew where to find them if I tried anything, so I was trapped there."

"Stephen was spending too much time worrying about how to get me back, and he got sloppy and careless and left his workroom open when he went off to get something. Charles was getting upset about how his father kept ignoring him and must have decided to set his experiment off out of spite. What he set off was the upload of an early version of the information Intersect, and Stephen was frantic when he found him, he thought that he'd burned our son's brain out because he wasn't reacting to anything. Charles came back though, and he was fine, so Stephen presumed that that meant that that version was safe. He had it stuck in his head that with the right resources he could get me out of Russia, so he went and loaded the same version as Charles had into his head."

Mary shook her head. "It wasn't safe for him though, it started frying his brain. He tried to fix it over the next couple of years but he kept deteriorating. In the end he decided that he didn't want Eleanor and Charles to see him turn into a vegetable, so he contacted the others in the Spooks and asked them to get our children out of there and look after them. He told them that he was going to go away and try to fix himself, and he'd be back if he was successful. Most of the group were field agents, so they couldn't guarantee that they could be there to look after them, and Di was climbing the ranks in the NSA by then so your mother moved to Los Angeles to look after Eleanor and Charles, and Jeff Biddle did as well to help, as he'd been caught hacking systems to create your mother's new identity, so he had to disappear before he was locked up."

"Somewhere between Maryland and California, Jeffrey Biddle became Jeffrey Barnes, Emma's nephew, and they thought that they had it sorted out, but trouble wasn't done with us yet. A month after they moved Eleanor and Charles into a new house with Emma, they spotted CIA people hanging around the area. Apparently someone connected with the CIA had seen your mother and reported the sighting, so they were looking for her again."

"The only way to get them out of that was to move them again, but Emma couldn't live with them as she had to stay hidden. Emma moved into the house with Jeff and they set up Eleanor and Charles in an apartment nearby. Jeff drove them around and did their shopping and the like until Eleanor got her license, and your mother watched over them and did what she could for them. It meant that Eleanor had to mostly be a mother to Charles while she was a teenager herself, but they both turned out OK."

"Anyway, that's most of the story. Stephen came back four years after that, but the best he'd managed to come up with was a way to stop, or at least severely slow, the deterioration. He was a mess by then, so they had him transferred to Washington where Di knew a therapist who was a family friend as well as an agency therapist to secretly work with him. Eleanor and Charles both managed to get full scholarships to study medicine and engineering, though they had to have jobs to keep up appearances and Charles got screwed over, twice, by that bastard Larkin just before he graduated. First he hid exam results under his bed and framed him for cheating to get him kicked out of Stanford, then he slept with his girlfriend and stole her away from him to rub his nose in it."

Mary took Sarah's distraught expression as a reaction to Chuck having a girlfriend and tried to explain that it only happened when he was trying to live a normal life at university but Sarah shook her head with tears in her eyes. "No Auntie Mary, you don't understand! I was Larkin's partner for two years and we were having sex while we were partners! I really don't believe that it was any more than that and it wasn't all the time, but I slept with him during missions and after missions sometimes too. How can I tell Chuck that I was sleeping with the bastard who screwed him over three times like that? I. I can't face him, I have to leave!"

When she tried to stumble off in tears, she found that Auntie Mary was still an incredibly strong woman, because there was nothing that she could do to stop Mary grabbing her and pushing her back down onto the seat.

Mary looked her in the eye. "Listen to me, Samantha Lisa Blake! Charles knows how these things happen, he's accepted that I've had to give in to Volkoff, as well as my partners sometimes, to stay alive and they've had an agent who's been watching them for Volkoff living with them and sleeping with Eleanor on and off for the last six years. Jill wasn't the only one Charles slept with, but it wasn't love with any of them because he gave his heart away a long time before that. So tell me the truth, were you sleeping with Larkin out of love, because you desired him, or was it because it would have been dangerous to work with him otherwise?"

"It wasn't love! I don't think it was even desire or attraction really. Oh he certainly knew what buttons to push to get a woman worked up and make it happen and I have to admit that sometimes the after mission excitement got to me and I was into it as well but generally….. I didn't think of it that way but yeah, I guess that was why I was giving in to him sometimes. I do know that his half arsed performance almost got me killed more than once after I found out about how he was screwing anything that stayed still long enough and refused to sleep with him any more because I couldn't stand the thought of something like him touching me."

Mary smoothed her hair. "Sweetie, like I said, Chuck doesn't like it, but he understands how this world works, he won't hold that against you, just be honest with him. Do you think he likes knowing that I had to do that or having his sister sleep with that bastard who was planted there to keep an eye on them for Alexei Volkoff? Eleanor's case is a little different in that she's using him to make up for what she missed out on because she was being a mother to Charles when most girls were partying and doing what they wanted to have fun, but when it comes down to it she's sleeping with the enemy to keep him where they can see him. Samantha, trust me, that isn't enough to make you lose Charles, as long as you're honest with him."

She held Sarah for a while until she'd regained her composure, then quickly ran through the rest of what she had to tell her. It hadn't been safe for her mother to stay nearby after Devon turned up, so she'd moved down to San Diego, Mary told Sarah how to contact her there. Jeff was still nearby and and he was working with Charles at the Buy More in case he needed help. They'd selected the Buy More as a place for them to hide in plain sight as it fit with their official stories as failures. Bry Mills had left the CIA and was in Los Angles too, working in security.

John Casey wasn't a worry, as he was part of the Spooks, just like General Diane Beckman who he was reporting to was. Casey was the ultimate soldier and a good man, and Di wouldn't have chosen him for this if he wasn't the best. After all, she was Eleanor and Charles' godmother, as well as Samantha's, so she wouldn't do anything to put them at risk. Lang was also part of the Spooks and his orders were for their own good too, and Charles was handling the Intersect better than anyone else ever had, so the situation wasn't anywhere near as bad as it had looked when she'd been called.

They still had to find a way to get this set up the right way though, to make sure that Sarah and Casey were assigned to watch Charles and have him make use of the abilities of this Intersect to make an on-going operation worthwhile. There would also be others be looking over their shoulders all the time, so as long as this was going on they'd have to keep up the act constantly.

Sarah had to be seen as nothing but the CIA's Enforcer, Casey had to be the NSA's ultimate soldier, Charles had to be the bumbling civilian who'd been thrown into the middle of this and Di and Lang had to be the unfeeling bosses who were willing to sacrifice anything and anyone to serve the greater good.

They'd be under surveillance most of the time, so they wouldn't let anything slip about how things really were. One thing that they might be able to do, if she wanted, was to have Di and Lang order her to use a cover relationship with Charles as an excuse to be close to him most of the time.

Mary broke off and grinned at the shy smile that broke out on Sarah's face when she said that last, because it was obvious that Eleanor was right about them, now that they'd found each other again they wanted to stay together. "I take it that that arrangement would suit you then?"

She saw the sweet little girl that Samantha had been again when she blushed and said "Yes Auntie Mary, I'd like that." in a quiet voice.

Mary held up a hand and took out one of the pre-paid phones, calling Di again. "Hi Sweetie. Look, I was thinking about what you were saying about Samantha and I think that you and John might be going about this the wrong way. You know how headstrong she can be, so if John goes out there to drag her back she's bound to just dig her heels in. Maybe you should let her have a relationship with this boy and stay out there with him, John can keep an eye on them for a while and see how things work out. It could be the best thing for them, and the family."

There was a break as Di took in what she was saying, and Mary could hear the smile in her voice when she responded. "I think you're right Honey, John hasn't found Samantha yet but I'll talk to him about this. It could work out if she stayed out there with her boy, she can work for the family business out there and be happy, but if we drag her back she's likely to throw everything away. Yes, I'll talk to John and her Uncle, I'm sure that we can set something up. Thank you Honey, I can't tell how much this has been worrying me."

"You've done the same for me Sweetie, remember how I was when Nora had her boyfriend move in? And don't worry about Bruce either, I'm sure that business with his college buddy has already blown over. Look, I've got to go but like I said I was thinking about Samantha and wanted to talk to you about it. See you soon, bye."

When she hung up she looked at Sarah, just in time to brace herself as she threw herself on her to hug her. "Thank you Auntie Mary!"

Mary hugged her back and said that they needed to talk this over with Charles, adding what she'd said to Ellie about having to head back to Russia soon. Sarah nodded, saying that she hadn't officially engaged Chuck yet so she could go back and talk him into a date, using the excuse that he hadn't called her back. Mary told her to get Charles to bring her to Bry's and they could talk there.

Just before they split up, Sarah stopped as she realised something. "Wait a minute, did you tell me that NSA General Diane Beckman is my Godmother? How did I not know that?"

"You were all too young to remember it at the time. With you and Charles, it was partly to give her something to hang onto after she and Bry lost their daughter the way they did, but she'd also transferred to the NSA by then, so she was staying in the States and would be there to look after you. We didn't tell Eleanor and Charles about it either until I was stuck in Russia and they needed people to look after them."

"Who's my Godfather then, Director Graham?"

"No, it's Deputy Director Ryan, for the same reason, he was more likely to be there when you needed him than the others, except maybe Stephen, but Jack was always more dependable than Stephen."

* * *

With that, Sarah went to put on the show of asking Chuck out at the Buy More while Mary went back to Bry's to start making the arrangements for her trip back to Russia, aside from crossing back into Canada from Chicago rather than Seattle, it would be the reverse of her trip out, and she'd be flying the same L-39 Albatros that she'd flown out in back into Moscow.

Of course, they had to put up with Morgan Grimes' interference again. He'd gone through Elementary school with Charlie Kowalski up in Encino, and getting away from him had almost been as good as getting away from the CIA for both Chuck and Ellie, because as well as bring irritating and stupid, his obsessive crush on Ellie and ridiculous conviction that she returned his affections no matter what she said drove her around the bend. While they'd never discussed the matter directly, Chuck believed that keeping Morgan at bay may have been part of the reason why Ellie let Devon move in.

Being free from Morgan Grimes from ninety two to ninety six had been wonderful, but when Chuck turned fifteen, they decided that to keep up the appearance of them being struggling students, he needed to get a job like Ellie. It was decided that the best job he could get at that time was working on the Burbank Buy More's Nerd Herd technical support team, so he signed up to work in the after school and weekend slots, Jeff also signed up to look out for him.

The problem was that it wasn't until after he started working there that he found out that Morgan was part of the sales staff and Morgan decided that it was fate. In his mind they were destined to be bestest buddies for ever and ever, amen. He always hung around like a bad smell and there was no way of getting rid of him.

Being chronically stupid, he couldn't understand why Charlie Kowalski was now Chuck Bartowski, but they managed to get him to swallow the story that Chuck and Ellie were in witness protection and convince him that even speaking the names of Charles and Eleanor Kowalski could get them killed. They trotted out Uncle Bry with his U.S. Marshals credentials to sell the story, and he'd done a surprisingly good job of sticking to only calling them Chuck and Ellie Bartowski since then.

Unfortunately that didn't stop him sticking his nose into everything that Chuck (and Ellie when he could find an excuse) did. This meant that he almost screwed up their setting up the date, and insisted on following Chuck home to boast to Ellie how HE got Chuck a date with a mega hottie.

When Chuck and Sarah got to Bry's, Sarah was surprised to find that she did remember Uncle Bry, and after the joyous reunions they sat down to work out what they were going to do while they waited for Ellie to have her break and slip out and meet them.

Mary pointed out that they'd need something big to use to justify keeping Charles out in the world with two handlers at Sarah and Casey's level.

Casey actually arrived at this point and that made the atmosphere uncomfortable, as he and Sarah only knew each other as adversaries, but seeing Mary and Bry greet him as an old friend and tell him that Sarah was Emma's daughter helped smooth that over.

By the time that Ellie had arrived, Chuck had gone over the information flashes that he'd had since he opened the email from Bryce Larkin and triggered the upload of the Intersect. He didn't realise just how bad an bad idea it was to remind them that he'd been stupid enough to open the email until Ellie and his mother tore into him over that.

When that had settled down, the five of them went over what he'd come up with and tried to put the clues together. Casey was probably the most surprised when he was the one who did. Chuck had flashed on a Serbian bomber and General Leland Stanfield and a few other things, and Casey remembered seeing that the General was speaking at the Pacific Security League Conference at a hotel downtown that night.

When he said that, Chuck had a number of other flashes which showed the plans of the hotel, bomb design, the schedule which highlighted the time that the General was speaking etc, which pretty much confirmed his hypothesis. Ellie had to go back to the hospital, but the rest of them headed for the hotel. Mary and Bry couldn't afford to be seen so they waited in Bry's car and listened over the radio while Chuck, Sarah and Casey went in.

* * *

Casey and Sarah used their credentials to get the three of them into the conference room, though Sarah made a note to ask Chuck later about what he had been reaching for when the security people were questioning their authority to be there.

Chuck identified the bomber, but the security guards killed him when he reached in his jacket for something before they could capture him. Swearing under his breath because they'd killed him BEFORE the bomb had been located, Chuck quickly cast his gaze about the the room until he noted a food cart which seemed out of place.

Sarah and Casey were on his heels as he ran for the cart, and when he slid the top open, it was a hard to work out who's exclamation was loudest, as the timer was running and already under thirty seconds, so they didn't need two guesses to work out what the bomber had been reaching for. Something wasn't right though, the explosives under the cover with the arming mechanism weren't enough to be sure of taking out the General up on stage from here, or much of the room for that matter. With a feeling of dread, Chuck looked behind the drapes around the body of the trolley and went white, as it was absolutely packed with explosives. There was no way to contain that big an explosion, or to evacuate the room in the time available, so they HAD to disarm the bomb.

The problem was that it wasn't built according to the design he'd flashed on and it wasn't anything he or Casey recognised (bomb disposal wasn't among Sarah's many skill sets) either. Chuck was about to give up when he realised that the cheap laptop that was being used for the arming mechanism was one that he'd seen a lot of over the past couple of days because their design was particularly susceptible to the Irene Demova virus that was going around. With that, he jumped onto the laptop, working urgently to enable WiFi, connect to the hotels WiFi network and bring up a browser. He quickly ran a search to find the virus site, entered the site and used the virus to fry the laptop, with three fucking seconds to spare!

Chuck and Sarah fell into each other's arms, not caring for the moment about the need to keep up appearances after coming so close to being blown to smithereens. They were brought out of if by a commanding voice asking "Commander, what happened here?"

When they pulled back, they had General Stanfield giving Chuck a very worried look. Chuck quickly gave him a professional rundown on what had happened, and when the General commented that the explosives on display didn't look like much, Chuck pulled the drapes back to show the massive amount of explosives packed into the body of the trolley.

The General went white and barked for someone to get the trolley out of there, but when one of the security people hustled up to grab the handle to push it away he hissed "GENTLY! That whole thing's packed with explosives!" The man looked as though he fouled his shorts at that, and he pushed the trolley away VERY gingerly.

They wound up their explanations and Chuck stressed to the General that they were never there. The General nodded at that without saying a word and shook each of their hands as he thanked them before going back to the front of the room. When he left, Sarah grabbed Chuck by the arm and dragged him from the room.

* * *

As soon as they were outside and no-one else was in earshot, Sarah started in on him. Casey wanted answers too, but he was content to let Sarah do the work. "OK, what's with 'Commander', why does a four star General know you by sight and take what you say without question and what's in your pocket?"

Chuck took a breath. "Uncle Bry took over Ellie's and my training as soon as we relocated down here to make sure that we could look after ourselves, so we both got full Special Operations and Covert Operative training. Uncle Bry thought I had a talent for the Special Operations side so he somehow got me put through main special operations trainings. My identity in the system showed me as Navy Lieutenant Junior Grade Charles Carmichael when they fast tracked me through SEAL training in late ninety five, my records showed that I was twenty two at the time."

He glanced at them before continuing. "Uncle Bry and I have done missions with the SEALs, Delta Force, Special Forces, Rangers, Marine Raiders and others, as well as the CIA's SOG, the FBI's HRT and some with Israel's Special Operations Groups in the last twelve years and I was promoted and decorated for some of those operations, so I'm Navy Commander Charles Carmichael now. I've dealt with General Stanfield a number of times and he didn't ask any questions because I'm normally with Uncle Bry so he's always presumed that I'm CIA, we've never confirmed or denied that."

He looked at Sarah again as he reached into his pocket, pulled out the leather folder and handing it to her. "What I was reaching for was my FBI credentials because it looked like they'd picked up on the fact that you aren't part of the CIA's National Resources Division and therefore aren't authorised to operate inside the United States, but they gave in, so I didn't need to use them. I was added into the FBI system back when I was added to the Navy."

Sarah looked at FBI Senior Special Agent Charles Carmichael's credentials and passed them on to Casey without a word.

Bry pulled up beside them then. "Why don't we talk this over back at my place, and then you two can make your phone calls to Director Graham and General Beckman to get this operation set up?"

When Chuck went to get into Bry's car, as he wasn't getting the impression that Sarah wanted to be anywhere near him at the moment, she reached out and grabbed his hand, leading him off towards where her rental Porsche was. Casey called out and when Chuck looked his way, threw him his credentials. Chuck nodded as he caught them and put them away in his pocket.

On the way to Bry's, she asked without looking at him. "There's a lot about you that I don't know, isn't there?"

"Probably, but I presume that I can say the same about you?"

She nodded musingly. "Why didn't Auntie Mary say anything about this when she was telling me about what happened this afternoon?"

"I guess because she thought that giving you the history of how the family, your family and mine, got here was more important than the details. I expect she thought that we'd have time to go through this later, I know that I was hoping that we would."

She reached out to grab his hand. "You know that that's what I want too, don't you?"

He lifted her hand to his lips and gave it a soft kiss. "I hope so, but you didn't seem happy to find out what you did earlier, so I'm a little worried how you'll react when you hear about the rest."

She glanced at him "Do you have a wife, girlfriend or family somewhere?"

"No, none of that, though Ellie says that I treat my Harley like my baby."

Sarah snorted at that. "Well we'll be fine then, as long as you can handle what I have to tell you."

She paused, thinking. "Where's your Harley? I didn't see one anywhere near the apartment when I was scoping it out."

"They're stashed away in Jeff's garage, mine, Ellie's and Jeff's. With this stupid cover life we're supposed to be penniless, and we can't let the walking sex toy find out about them either."

Sarah snorted again at the 'walking sex toy' description and pulled his hand over to kiss it like he had her's. She didn't let go until she needed her hand back to work the gearbox.

They talked over the events of the night and Mary and Bry offered their suggestions to make a more compelling case with Langston and Diane. Mary reminded them that they weren't trying to convince Director Graham and General Beckman, the purpose of this was to convince the people who they knew would be listening in.

Sarah and Casey made their calls, then they settled down to have a few drinks and relax while they were waiting for a reply. Bry waved Sarah over while he was getting the drinks and pointed to the pictures on the wall. He smiled and handed her her drink before he went back to the others because he knew she'd be there for a while.

Some of the pictures were from Bry's past, but most were from the period where he was training and operating with Chuck and Ellie, and they included promotions and medal ceremonies for the two of them. The majority were Chuck's, but Ellie had some impressive ones up there too.

* * *

Ellie had finished her shift at the hospital and turned up by the time Diane and Langston called back two hours later, Sarah and Casey both answered the calls on speaker to make it a teleconference. They'd managed to get the necessary authorisations from the powers that be to create an inter agency operation with Sarah Walker and John Casey protecting and supporting the Human Intersect. They could hear that Diane was struggling not to laugh when she told Casey that his cover job was going to be part of the sales staff at the Buy More.

His expression said that that made him want to shoot someone, but the musing look he posed at Chuck made it clear that he now understood that Chuck wouldn't be the easy target he'd been expecting after what he'd heard earlier that night. He may bag them out, but he knew that those groups that Chuck had been operating with were tough, and if he'd been promoted and decorated for operations with them, so was he. Still, the fact that a kid like Chuck held a higher rank than he did rankled, even if he had earned it.

Hearing that he was being set up in an apartment across the courtyard from the apartment that Chuck shared with his sister and her boyfriend (he didn't know about him yet) alleviated some of his aggravation as that would make his job easier.

It was Walker's turn next though and he leant forward in anticipation, even though he mused as he looked at her that the original members of the Spooks must have been hell on wheels if all of their kids were like these two.

Casey cheered up considerably when he got to see Walker's reaction when she was told that HER cover job was working at the Weinerlicious. Her expression was delicious, which was more than he could say for the crap that they served there. He couldn't wait to see her reaction to the uniform. Her demeanour didn't improve much when Graham said that she'd remain where she was at the Maison23, a long stay hotel, but General Beckman cut in then.

"Agent Walker, as Major Casey has been placed in the Buy More to keep watch over Mister Bartowski at work and will be monitoring the surveillance equipment when the rest of it is installed in the Bartowski apartment, your responsibility will be to keep watch over the Asset outside of work."

Chuck looked up and his eyes narrowed in anger at the mention of surveillance in their home, Casey could now see the guy who'd been working with the Special Operations elite for the last twelve years. Ellie leant over and whispered in his ear that it was OK, she'd talked it over with Mom and it was an acceptable requirement. Chuck's expression said that he didn't agree with it being OK, but he wouldn't fight it.

"To enable you to get close enough to to perform your duties, it has been agreed between Director Graham and myself that you will go into a cover relationship with him. You have already laid the groundwork for this with the way that you engaged him, visiting him twice in two days at his work and asking him out on a date, so it should be believable for you to continue with this. Do you foresee any problems with following these orders?"

Casey really wanted some popcorn at the moment, because watching Walker trying to wipe that shit eating grin off her face for long enough to sound professional as she responded. "No, Ma'am." was hilarious. Chuck's anger had flared up again when he heard Auntie Di say that, but Sarah leaned in to kiss him and whisper that his mother had set this up for her that afternoon.

Langston had to step in for the next part as Diane started coughing to cover up her laughter.

"General Beckman appears to be indisposed at the moment so I'll cover this part Agent Walker. I'm sure that you understand that the accommodations at Maison23 are intended to be a short time option only. Given the importance of this asset, we will be requiring twenty four seven coverage on him. To this end, we expect you to ramp up your relationship with him very quickly and move in with him at the earliest opportunity, is this understood?"

Chuck's eyes had gone wide at this last and he went to respond, but Sarah swooped in to seal his lips with a kiss before he said anything and she had tears in her eyes as she whispered in his ear that this was the least intrusive way of getting the twenty four seven protection that would be required. They could have separate bedrooms if he wanted, but this was the way it needed to be. He kissed her back and whispered that one would be fine, this was just coming a little fast for him. She smiled and kissed him again, but was interrupted by Langston.

"Agent Walker?"

"Sorry Sir, I was just trying to take it in. You know that I have always avoided assignments of this nature Director."

"Yes, I am aware of that Agent Walker, but the importance of the Human Intersect demands this level of commitment to ensure his protection. Will you accept the terms of the assignment or must we find another agent to replace you?"

Sarah smiled at Chuck and mouthed 'No fucking way that's happening!' before speaking. "No sir, there is no need to find another agent, I understand the requirements for an asset of this importance and am prepared to accept the terms of the assignment."

"We appreciate your sacrifice Agent Walker. I believe that we have covered off what's necessary at this point. We will make the necessary arrangements at the FBI's Los Angeles office for yourself and Major Casey to attend a secure video conference at 0900 tomorrow morning to set up everything necessary. Does anyone have anything else to add?"

After their 'No, Sir's and Diane's 'No, Director', he said. "We will speak in the morning then." and hung up, Diane hung up at the same time.

* * *

After they'd hung up their phones, Sarah and Casey talked about the videoconference in the morning and Sarah asked him if he knew where the FBI Office was. When Chuck answered to give her the directions, she looked at him as something occurred to her. She looked over at the pictures on the wall and then back at him. "Chuck, why are you an FBI Agent?"

Ellie, Mary and Bry smiled as they saw what she'd just realised.

"Because I needed to be an FBI Agent to operate with their HRT."

"How do you operate with the CIA's SOG then?"

"The same way, the identity for CIA Agent Charles Carmichael was set up at the same time as my Navy and FBI identities."

Casey spat a mouthful of scotch across the table at that, because he hadn't put that bit together. This just kept getting better and better! He was angry about how he'd been kept in the dark at first, but he realised that there had been no need to know these details until they'd confirmed that he did in fact have this Intersect.

With the operation set up, Mary spent what time she could with Ellie and Chuck, because she was heading straight to the airport from there to begin her trip back to Moscow. Sarah was surprised when Mary embraced her and whispered a heartfelt plea in her ear for her to look after her boy.

When Sarah snorted and started to say that he could obviously look after himself she was startled by the intensity of Mary's gaze as she shook her head. "No, not where it counts, remember what I said about him giving his heart away? Protect that gift, please?"

Sarah nodded with tears in her eyes as Mary kissed her.

Mary left soon after that, and so did the others. Sarah took Chuck to the beach for a while to talk before she dropped him off at the apartment to ensure that he and Ellie didn't get home at the same time.

 **A/N: As noted up top, not sure whether this story will get going now or later, or whether it will at all I guess. It all depends on what people say.**


	2. Intersect Team

**OK, in case anyone missed it, Mary, Beckman, Graham, Casey and a number of others are all part of a group of friends from the spy world who got together back in the seventies, they call themselves the Spooks. Devon is the Russian spy that he was originally intended to be in the series, so he'll be exiting early as they planned. Chuck was still stupid enough to open the email from the Douche and Sarah and Casey were sent after him, but it's to look after him. Mary got a call in Moscow and raced home to save her son when everything blew up. I think that's pretty much the story so far.**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed, this isn't the real world and nor is it a Disney Princess Story.**

Echo Park, California – September 2007

When the alarm went off, Chuck slapped the snooze button and laid back, staring at the ceiling. Life had been one hell of a roller coaster since his birthday. Yeah, he had to concede that Mom and Ellie were right, it had been monumentally stupid to open that email from Larkin. If he hadn't been uniquely qualified to handle the Intersect, he would have almost certainly ended up dead, or at least brain dead, as Larkin had obviously intended. He'd have to remember to thank Casey properly for killing that douche like he'd wanted to so many times in the last six years.

At least he had Sammie (No, Sarah!) back, and they'd had Mom back for a day, it had been so good to see her. Of course, the bombshell that Sarah had been sleeping with Larkin on and off for two years while he was her partner had been hard to take, but he could hardly condemn her for that when he'd been doing pretty much the same thing with Jill and the others to maintain the cover of being a normal college student.

At least Jill had been nothing more than a cover relationship, otherwise it would have bit the big one, the way she'd left him and jumped straight into bed with Larkin as soon as he made his move on her. It was hardly a surprise though, he'd seen the way that her eyes had lit up like dollar signs every time Larkin started boasting about his family's money.

She was just another gold digger, but that was why he'd picked her and the others, he couldn't have done what he did to anyone nice, so he'd picked up popular bitches like her to use as arm candy. He seduced them the way Uncle Roan had taught him and used their connections to stay at the outer edge of the in crowd where he was effectively invisible. He grinned, at least she'd saved him the trouble of breaking up with her when they graduated.

As soon as the others had left Stanford, he'd gone back with Uncle Bry as an FBI agent, Uncle Roan as a lawyer and irrefutable evidence from an 'FBI investigation' that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he'd been framed. They also had a clear cut case that he had been expelled without due process and without being granted any of his legal rights, so Stanford fell all over themselves to waive the twelve credits he was missing on the basis of the fact that he'd been ahead of everyone else to grant him his degrees under his 'new' name of Charles Carmichael. They also settled out of court to the tune of five million dollars to make the whole thing go away.

The fact that Stanford also dismissed and blacklisted Professor Fleming, the bastard who'd helped Larkin frame him, was just icing on the cake. Mind you, showing them the evidence of what Larkin had used to blackmail him, the way he was altering the results of his female students and coercing them into sleeping with him to 'fix their grades', had a lot to do that.

Of course, the CIA had made Larkin disappear as soon as he graduated so there hadn't been any way to get him back, but Chuck had been prepared to wait for him to get his just deserts, and now he had. Carefully investing that five million settlement had grown it to several times that much in the last six years and he'd earned three post graduate degrees from Caltech, so all in all they hadn't really hurt him none.

He'd laid out his plan for how he wanted all of this to go to Sarah last night at the beach, and with her agreement he'd written it all up and emailed it to Auntie Di, Uncle Lang and Casey so that they'd be all acting off the same script in their meeting this morning. Sarah had been surprised by how quickly he'd put together that detailed a plan, but he'd reminded her that he'd been trained by the best, including Auntie Em.

The alarm went off again and his smile from the memories of last night faded, because he had to get to the fukn Buy More and spend another day pretending that this was his life. He angrily got out of bed and headed for the bathroom.

Maison23

Sarah started the day much as Chuck did (other than being a little tired as she didn't do well without sleep), hitting the snooze button and laying back with a smile to think about the events of the last couple of days.

Walking into that stupid store to locate the mark who had received the transmission from Larkin and finding Charlie was, incredible! Of course that disgusting little gnome who hung around like a bad smell, leering at her and making pathetic attempts to charm her had soured the moment a little, but Ellie said that that was normal for that little toad, how had she described him? Oh yeah. 'Sleazy, the eighth dwarf, Dopey's disgusting retarded brother!'

Seeing Charlie, no, she had to get used to calling him Chuck, was enough to fill the hole in her heart though, she couldn't believe how much better that made her feel! Spending time with him and Ellie and catching up on what she'd missed out on since her father took her away to help him live the life of a conman had been great. She knew that Ellie had been laughing at the way she'd hung onto Chuck's hand as if she were afraid that he'd disappear again if she let go, but he'd shown no inclination to get away.

Then Ellie called to say that Auntie Mary wanted to speak to her, and Auntie Mary had told her so much more! Finding out about 'Uncle Lang' and 'Auntie Di' was one hell of an eye opener and that was going to take some getting used to, as was the fact that the NSA's Lethal Weapon and the Seduction Master, Roan Montgomery, were part of the 'family' as well. The best part of what Auntie Mary had told her though was that Mama was alive and well and living in San Diego, Mama was only a couple of hours away, less the way she drove!

Watching how Chuck operated and finding out about Charles Carmichael was also an eye opener, and seeing how angry he was when he thought that she was being pushed into something against her will warmed her heart. That talk on the beach last night had quite possibly been the highlight of the last two days though. She'd had her heart in her mouth when she told Chuck about what she'd done with Larkin, but Auntie Mary had been right. He hadn't been happy about it but he'd understood, in fact he'd told her about Jill and the other cover relationships he'd had in High School and University and what he'd done with them to keep up appearances.

Hearing about Air Force Major and FBI and CIA Agent Eleonora Zaleska was also quite interesting. As she'd seen in Uncle Bry's pictures, Ellie might not have received the accolades that Chuck had (something that Chuck was quite angry about actually), but her secret life was still damned impressive! What those two had done in their 'free time' was incredible, all the more so because they'd done it under the nose of Ellie's 'live in boyfriend', the SVU agent.

Sarah got out of bed when her alarm went off again, but she was rather more hopeful than Chuck had been because she was getting ready to set up her new life with Chuck and the family, not spend another day trapped in a cover life that she hated.

FBI Los Angeles Office

Sarah met Casey outside the FBI's Los Angeles Field Office in Westwood at 0845 and they headed in together, getting set up in a secure video-conference facility in time for the video-conference with the Director of the CIA, Langston Graham and the NSA's Director of Signals Intelligence, Brigadier General Diane Beckman, at 0900.

Knowing that others would be monitoring this video-conference, the two current and two ex-covert operatives put on the required show for their watchers, dutifully playing out each act of Chuck's script. The Directors went through the details of what was being set up, and Sarah and Casey made their objections where expected.

The first objections were, of course, related to their cover jobs. Sarah and Casey noted that minimum wage positions in retail and food service might be appropriate for short term in and out missions, but they were hardly appropriate for an on-going operation of this nature.

Diane handled this matter, pointing out that the requirement for the menial nature of their positions came from the current place of employment for the asset who was the reason for this operation. She held up a hand to forestall further argument as she went on, reading from the paperwork in front of her.

"That being said, we have noted that the asset is highly skilled in a technical capacity and the customers of the business that he is currently employed by hold a great deal of respect for him. Our analysts have indicated that there is a high probability of the majority of the technical services customers following him if Mister Bartowski were to leave the Buy More and set up a competing technical services business."

"Therefore, what we are looking into at this time is to create a technical services company at a nearby location where we can set up the proper facilities for this operation, and have Mister Bartowski resign from the Buy More and move to this new company when it's ready. The story will be that his new girlfriend, you of course Agent Walker, received a sizeable payout from her previous employer to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit. Also, Major Casey, a new starter at the Buy More, is in a position where he can make a low interest loan from his healthy four oh one K plan."

"This way, between the two of you, you will have the funds to set up the new company, with Mister Bartowski and some the Buy More's other 'Nerds Herd' personnel supplying the technical capability to make the company viable. As the financiers for this new company, the two of you will join the company as well. You will handle the phones and run the business, Agent Walker, and you will assist with the installations and service calls Major Casey."

She looked up at the screen. "Would this be sufficient to address your concerns about your cover jobs?"

Casey nodded and said. "Yes, Ma'am."

Sarah also said. "Yes, Ma'am.", but went on. "How are we going to get the other Nerd Herd personnel that we need though Ma'am, and what is proposed to ensure that they don't see anything that we don't want them to? Also, from my dealings with Mister Bartowski to date, I'm sure one of the first things he's bound to ask is what this new company will be called, has that been decided yet?"

Diane nodded. "These are excellent questions Agent Walker, I can see that your reputation for good planning is justified." She took a moment to give Casey a disapproving look for failing to ask those questions before going on.

"Our analysts have identified the next most capable, and least objectionable, of the Nerd Herd personnel after Mister Bartowski as Jeffrey Barnes and Anna Wu. Agent Walker, you will have the task of convincing Mister Bartowski to talk them into following him to the new company. As far as controlling what they see, it will be your responsibility to ensure that they are sent out on external service calls whenever the team is dealing with anything sensitive. As for the name, the analysts have come up with Hunter Security and Technology as something which will project the right image for the company."

Langston snorted at this, he turned it into a cough quite well but Sarah picked up on it, so that was another thing to ask Chuck or Ellie about.

Diane glanced at him but looked at the screen. "Has this been sufficient to address your concerns Agent Walker?"

Sarah nodded and said. "Yes, Ma'am."

With the cover job and primary operations issues out of the way, Langston went on to the matter of Sarah moving in with Chuck to satisfy the 24/7 protection requirements.

"Agent Walker, while we understand your issues with the close protection requirements and are looking into available options for an apartment where you will be able to have your own bedroom, I am afraid that the asset's security requirements dictate that you will initially need to move in with him in his current residence. The fact that he shares this residence with his sister and her boyfriend means that it will be necessary for you to share a bed with him in his room to protect your cover in case anyone enters the room. Once again, given your well documented unwillingness to perform these types of duties in the past, I must officially ask whether you will accept the conditions for this assignment in full, or must we assign another agent to take your place in the project?"

Sarah drew a breath before responding. "Thank you for offering me a choice in this matter Director Graham. As you have noted, I have not accepted roles of this nature in the past except under dire circumstances as I generally find them extremely distasteful. However, as we discussed previously, I am fully cognisant of the the importance of the asset who this operation is based on, and am prepared to put aside my personal preferences in this instance to accept all the requirements of the role."

"I must add that the asset himself has been instrumental in my decision to accept these requirements Sir, as he has acted as a perfect gentleman at all times in our interactions. Mister Bartowski is extremely intelligent, and in our discussions after Major Casey and I disclosed who we were and what was expected of him, he made it quite clear to both of us that he understood that our need for his cooperation put him in a position of power in dealing with us."

She paused and Casey nodded in agreement with what she'd just said.

"However, he has been quite respectful to both of us, and in particular me, since then. I have dealt with many men in my time as an agent sir, and in my experience most men are very quick to demand what they want as soon as they understand that they are in the position to make demands. In my experience, these demands have most often come down to me gratifying them."

Diane allowed her distaste at what Sarah said show through. It was on her record that she'd been a female operative on and off for over twenty years, so no-one would be at all surprised to see her remembering her own experiences of what Sarah was describing with distaste.

"I followed Mister Bartowski to the beach where he went after we, well more to the point he, disarmed the bomb at the Security Conference, and we talked for hours. I wanted to help him accept the situation, to make this easier for him, but when I went to use the techniques that I was taught to calm him and make him more comfortable he stopped me."

"He looked me in the eye and said 'Agent Walker, you don't need to handle me like that to get me to cooperate, I've already agreed to cooperate so I'll do what's needed of me. Quite frankly, I find the idea that a woman like yourself is expected to do things like that quite offensive so don't, please?' We talked for another hour or so after that and I believe that we developed a good rapport in that time."

She had been looking down as she 'remembered' her discussion, but now she looked up at the screen.

"That is why I am comfortable with moving in with Mister Bartowski Director Graham, as I am confident that he will regard it as a requirement for the mission and remain respectful, rather than seeing it as an opportunity for gratification as most other man would."

Langston nodded, he knew that they hadn't had that exact discussion, but he also knew that she'd just described Chuck to a 'T'. "Thank you for sharing that with us Agent Walker, it's good to have the measure of the man that so much will be depending on in this operation. I am also more comfortable now that your acceptance of the conditions for this assignment is not something that is likely to change."

They went through the rest of the items that needed to be set up and were about to terminate the link when Langston stopped them.

"One more thing Agent Walker, you are being assigned to the CIA's National Resources Division for the duration of this assignment so that you're authorised to operate within the United States. We were lucky that no-one thought to question that authority last night, but we can't rely on luck for this important an operation."

Sarah nodded and said. "Yes, Sir.", trying to hide her smile as she was pretty sure that that would have been in the points that Chuck sent through, from what he'd said when he explained about his FBI ID last night.

With that, they wound the video-conference up and Sarah and Casey went back to their hotels to get changed into clothes that were appropriate to report to their minimum wage jobs in.

Burbank

Within five minutes of walking into the Wienerlicious, Sarah was itching to shove her 'boss' Scooter's (who calls their kid 'Scooter' ferfuksake?) face into the deep fryer. He wasn't a sleaze, and she took a moment to be amazed about that, but he was one of the most incredibly annoying people that she'd ever met!

Unfortunately Casey had missed out on seeing Sarah's reaction to the ridiculous uniform she had to wear there, because he was having enough of his own trials, dealing with the retards at the sheltered workshop called the Buy More where he had to work. They somehow believed that it was safe to be ordering him about like their slave because he was supposedly at the bottom of the pecking order as the new guy.

Casey had to talk to Chuck and Jeff and find out how the hell they'd survived in this madhouse for six fukn years! He was also wondering why the General was punishing him like this, he hadn't done anything to deserve this! (Well, he had done something that would in her view deserve very serious punishment, but neither of them realised that yet.)

What made it even worse for Casey was the fact that the majority of the staff were too stupid to understand that they should be afraid of him, which obviously placed them at a level WAY below that of a village idiot. The only one who learned to be afraid of him on the first day was Harry Tang.

He'd started screaming at Casey the same way he did everyone else, until Casey picked him up by the throat and used a permanent marker to put a Hitler moustache on him before ramming the marker right through a nearby shelf. With that, he dropped him on the floor and growled at him. "Sieg Heil! Now stay away from me you maggot!" Tang scampered off to change his shorts and steered clear of Casey from then on.

When Chuck, Jeff and Anna Wu came over at 1300 and asked if he wanted to join them for lunch, he almost dropped the boxes he was carrying then and there in his eagerness to get out of there.

* * *

It was no surprise when they walked across the parking lot to the Wienerlicious, but walking in to see Sarah Walker, the Enforcer, the infamous Ice Queen, totally out of her depth certainly was. It was actually enough to make him forget about her Wienerlicious girl uniform. Casey would have put everything he had down on a bet that that woman would never get flustered, but she was so frustrated that she was almost in tears.

He snorted at that sight, but froze as he was skewered by the look she shot at him, the promise of dire consequences if he said a word blazing in her eyes. Chuck shot a look at Anna and she nodded, turning to keep watch as he went around the counter to see about getting the equipment to behave.

Casey was watching Anna because he was making a point of not looking anywhere in Sarah's direction, but he was quite interested in this 'Anna Wu' as well. The General had given him the electronic files on all of the people here, sealed so that he could not open them unless she explicitly gave him the access to get into them. She gave him that access last night.

Anna Wu was basically here on permanent probation. Chuck had caught her hacking into extremely sensitive government systems, but by the time he'd been notified that there was someone trying to get into the systems and assigned to do something about it, she'd already gotten in and accessed quite a bit of code word level classified information, including the Intersect Project that was now hosted inside Chuck's head.

Casey had no idea what Chuck had used to talk the General out of putting Wu into the deepest, darkest black hole in existence, if not six feet under. Even being the General's godson wouldn't have been enough to stop her doing what the rules said that she must unless he came up with one hell of a compelling argument, but he'd obviously found an argument that was strong enough to sway her, because when Anna agreed to honour the terms of permanent probation under Chuck's personal supervision, her records had been sealed. No-one outside their group knew what she had done.

Anna was an (obviously) elite hacker who'd been using the tag 'The Lotus'. While she was better than Jeff, she was no match for Chuck, but then 'The Piranha' was legendary in those circles. The thing was, Anna was also an accomplished martial artist, and between that and being a genius, with the right training she'd become a very capable operative in the five years since she'd joined the family here as Anna Wu.

While they didn't have the military identities that Chuck, Ellie and Bry had, Anna and Jeff did have equivalent FBI and CIA identities for operations. (Chuck had reactivated Bry's CIA credentials, flagging them when he did so to indicate that anyone asking questions would quite likely disappear.) This meant that they could, and did, operate quite well as a team of up to five when required.

The sounds of aggravation from the cooking area had largely diminished by the time Anna turned to shoot a look at Casey "Unless you're looking because you wanna tap my arse or are lookin' for a world of hurt Casey, I suggest that you back off! Only my boss, Chuck, can get away with looking at me like that!"

Casey grinned, he liked a woman who didn't back down. "So what if I do wanna tap your arse Wu?"

Anna grinned back. "If you bring me flowers, take me out for a nice meal and get me liquored up enough, you might have a chance Johnny Boy."

They heard. "Anna…..." from the cooking area so she looked over with a grin. "Hey, he started it!"

With that, Chuck and Sarah came out with a tray of moderately well cooked wieners and grins. "Yeah, sure!"

They sat down (with Chuck pulling their chairs out for both Sarah and Anna) and Chuck introduced Sarah to Anna and Jeff. Then Sarah and Casey went over what had been agreed in the meeting that morning. This gave Sarah the chance to ask Chuck what the significance of 'Hunter' was and he snorted.

"Dad's code name was Orion, the Hunter, so it's basically a slap in the face to anyone in the CIA who knows about him, but as far I know there isn't anyone left outside of the family who does."

Jeff and Anna were excited about the prospect of going to a new company that was just them. Being at the Buy More was torture for all of them, but none more so than Anna, because on top of dealing with the general retards who worked there and a decidedly sub-standard class of customers, she had Morgan Grimes, Lester Patel and the manager of the store, 'Big Mike', constantly trying to crack onto her, making suggestive comments, propositioning her and grabbing her arse.

They'd tried to get them to back off by pretending that she was Chuck's girlfriend for nearly a year, but while it slowed them down at times (usually when he was in sight), it still hadn't stopped those sleazy bastards from coming on to her.

As she'd been saying that morning, Sarah knew how that felt all too well, so she reached over to squeeze Anna's hand in sympathy. She decided to try and get a laugh out of her, so she said with a grin. "I was pretty much ordered to seduce Chuck into talking you two into following him when he leaves the Buy More. Just so you know, I'm open to bribes to put more effort in!"

Anna grinned back at her. "Done, come over to the store and I'll fix you up with whatever you want. Just remember to suck Chuckles' face off when you first get there to make it clear to everyone that you're well and truly taken."

Sarah gave her a sympathetic smile and squeezed her hand again.

Jeff piped up then, like Chuck he'd come to respect and care for Anna quite a bit in the time they'd been together and he hated that she had to put up with all that shit. "Seriously though, how long will this new business take to set up?"

The look Sarah gave him was apologetic, as it was obvious that he was thinking of Anna. "It will be at least two or three months. They have to find and purchase a property and then rebuild it with the facilities for the base underneath….."

She stopped and turned to Anna and Casey. "In the interim, I presume that you two were joking earlier, but if you managed to convince everyone over there that Anna and the new stud who just started have hooked up maybe that could scare them off? If his look isn't enough to scare them off, I'm sure that Casey is quite capable of hurting them without them having any way of proving it."

Anna looked at Casey, hesitantly hopeful.

He gave her a thoughtful look. "So, flowers, dinner and alcohol huh?"

Anna threw her arms around him and kissed him, but when she went to pull back Sarah hissed "No! Go for it!"

Knowing that she wouldn't say that without a reason, Casey did just that, and after a moment's hesitation Anna reciprocated.

While they were putting on the show, Chuck surreptitiously looked for what Sarah had spotted. It didn't take long to find them, Grimes and Patel were crouched behind a car in the parking lot doing a bad job of spying on them.

After watching the show Anna and Casey were putting on for five minutes, the pair outside slunk away dejectedly. Once they were out of sight, Sarah said. "OK, you can stop now….." She grinned and added "If you want to."

They didn't stop immediately and Anna stayed in Casey's arms as she turned to Sarah and asked "Who was it?"

"Grimes and Patel."

"Did it work?"

Sarah grinned "Well they didn't look at all happy as they scurried off with their tails between their legs, so it was a good start."

Chuck looked at her with a smile. "The new stud, huh?"

She smirked back at him. "Well the resident hottie is off the market now, so Casey's the next most impressive piece of man flesh over there. No offence Jeff."

Jeff grinned, he could see that he was going to like the new mistress of the manor. "None taken, Anna's more like a little sister to me anyway, and I'm not Appalachian."

Anna scrunched up her face and laughed. "Ewwwww! That's just wrong Jeff!"

Chuck mused at Sarah. "So the resident hottie's off the market is he?"

Sarah went from laughing to dead serious in a split second. "Totally!"

Casey stage whispered to Anna. "I guess we know who wears the pants there, don't we?"

Sarah dead-panned at him. "What makes you think I'm wearing pants Casey?"

Anna, Jeff and Sarah burst out laughing at Chuck's deer in the headlights look. The only reason that Casey held off was that he didn't know Chuck well enough yet.

Sarah leant in to kiss Chuck and whispered. "Relax Honey, I am." in his ear.

Chuck kissed her back and then regrettably said that they better get back.

Sarah nodded and kissed him again, thinking that she had eighteen years to make up for.

As the others were getting up, Sarah reminded Anna and Casey to rub salt into the wound by walk in holding hands or something.

Anna smirked. "Well I was thinking that riding my stallion into the store would make an impact."

Casey went bright red and everyone (else) burst out laughing.

When Anna took him by the hand and said "Don't worry Johnny, I'll be gentle." he looked as though he was going to faint.

Chuck bought into it then. "Damn it Anna, if you've broken him I'm taking it out of your pay!"

That was enough to break Casey out of his stupor as he turned to glare at Chuck, but Chuck just grinned back at him, totally unphased.

Back in the Buy More, Grimes and Patel were sulking, and for the rest of the day, whenever they looked as though they were going to go to talk to Anna, she'd head in Casey's direction. The glares that Casey sent their way kept both of them away from her.

* * *

At the end of Chuck's shift, he headed over to the Weinerlicious and went back to Sarah's hotel with her. They spent the time talking about how they'd handle this fake cover relationship, and Sarah told him about what Uncle Lang said that morning about the need for her to move in and share his room for a while.

She did point out that one upside was that the surveillance equipment that was being installed in his room would be removed because she'd be on hand to provide security, and also there were rules against monitoring agents in their private dwellings, which his room would be when she was living there. It was obvious that bringing up the fact that according to the rules HE officially had no right to privacy wasn't helping, so she dropped the subject.

When Ellie's shift at the hospital was due to finish, they headed over to the apartment for dinner so that Ellie could 'meet' her brother's new girlfriend. They could tell from the way that Devon's eyes lit up when he saw Sarah that the tool would try something. The only question was which of them would respond first.

Chuck could see Ellie playing with a utility knife (which he knew she was quite capable of hitting her target with from that distance) in the kitchen. He could also see Sarah freeing up some of her knives. As for himself, he was in the mood to just progressively break parts of the bastard, finishing with his neck.

Chuck shot a look down the hall towards the bathroom as Ellie hurried up to hug Sarah before Devon did something and Sarah gave a barely perceptible nod. As soon as Ellie hugged her, Sarah whispered in her ear and made a show of looking extremely uncomfortable. She asked if there was somewhere she could freshen up, looking embarrassed, and Ellie showed her to the bathroom.

Ellie came back looking worried and asked what was wrong with Sarah and Chuck went off at her. "You were all over her! She's from a extremely strict puritan family and she's trying to get over all of that but a lifetime of habits are hard to break. Since she was little she was taught that it's all but forbidden to touch anyone other than your husband, wife or children. She's making a hell of an effort to make it work with us by treating me as her husband but after your little effort she'll probably spend half the night in the bathroom! Now excuse me, I've got to go and look after my girlfriend."

With that he turned and stalked down the hall. They heard him knocking on the door and saying something indistinct, then the door opened to the sound of sobbing and then closed behind him.

Once the door closed, Sarah kissed him before asking. "Is Ellie OK?"

"Yeah, you told her enough to get on board and she's always been a great actress."

"U huh, so what's our story?"

Chuck grinned "You were raised in a very strict puritan family and touching is pretty much forbidden except for your husband, wife or children. You're trying to make it work for us by making me your de-facto husband."

She burst out laughing. "WHAT? You're demented! No church is that bad!"

"Oh I wouldn't put my money on that if I was you. There are head cases all over the place pining for the days when they were allowed to kill people for believing anything that differs in any way from what they do."

She gave him a mock glare "There better not be any sister-wives included in this little cult fantasy of your's husband!"

The look of contentment that crossed his face at that left her feeling gooey inside, and his soft voice as he said "Husband, I do like the sound of that." was almost Sarah's undoing. What was Charlie doing to her? Less than three days ago she was the Enforcer, quite rightly feared across the planet, but all it took was a look and a few soft words from him to make her go weak at the knees with her heart racing! She struggled to regain control of the situation and smirked at him as she fired off a volley.

"You know, you've shot yourself in the foot with this boyo, even if we can still swing it so I move in, I'll have to wear grannie jammies now."

Two could play at that game and he smirked back and returned. "Only outside of our room, your puritan modesty requirements will give us the perfect excuse to lock the door when we're in there, so we need not wear a thing in our room."

She glowered and spat. "Oh thanks for that!" at him as she realised that he was right, SHE was the one who'd be paying for this!

He at least had the decency to look properly contrite as he whispered. "Sorry." and kissed her on the forehead.

They'd been in there for twenty minutes when they heard Ellie knocking on the door and calling "Sarah? Please forgive me! I didn't realise how uncomfortable I was making you!"

Chuck opened the door just long enough to grab Ellie and drag her inside before he slammed it in Devon's face.

Ellie looked from one to the other with a smile on her face. "So who's brilliant idea was this?"

Sarah mock glared at Chuck. "My de-facto husband's! What's more I'll be moving in soon, and as he's so helpfully pointed out I'll have to be suitably modest and wear grannie jammies any time I'm outside of our room!"

"Hey, you're the one who brought up the grannie jammies, I just pointed out that you only have to wear them outside our room because we'll be locking the door to protect your modesty."

"Oh yeah, and he's decided that we won't be wearing anything inside our room."

"No, once again I only pointed out that we won't HAVE to wear anything."

Ellie shook her head at him. "You do realise that you're just digging the hole deeper don't you?"

He nodded ruefully at her. "Yeah, but the puritan story was all I could come up with to establish a strict no touching rule for your sex toy. It was inevitable that one of us would have killed him otherwise, you two had your knives ready and I was working out how much damage I could do to him before I snapped his neck, that would have just caused problems."

They both nodded ruefully at that and Sarah said. "OK, I forgot about that while I was trying to get my head around your crazy story, I guess this is a better option."

Ellie added. "And Sarah's puritan beliefs will give us the excuse we need to stop him wandering around half naked or more all the time. That would make her very uncomfortable, so if he won't cover up I'll have no choice but to throw him out."

Sarah grinned at her. "That's right, blame the puritan, that's the standard answer for you people."

Ellie laughed quietly and hugged her, then looked stricken. "Oh I'm so sorry, I did it again!"

Sarah laughed quietly with a glance at the door and punched her in the arm.

Ellie glanced at the door too as she hissed. "Ow! That hurt!"

"Just reminding you that one dork in the family is enough."

Chuck put his arm around Sarah and Ellie smiled at how well they fit together as she snuggled into him.

"OK, how about I take Sarah back to my room to try and settle her down until dinner's ready?"

Ellie nodded. "That sounds like a plan, I'll come and get you when dinner's ready. So, what's your bet on serious and minor during dinner?"

"I'll say five to ten serious and twenty to thirty minor."

Ellie nodded as Sarah looked from one to the other, waiting to be let in on what they were talking about.

When no explanation was forthcoming, she prodded. "Would one of you like to translate what you just said?"

Ellie looked contrite. "Oh, I'm sorry sweetie, it just feels so right with you here I guess I forgot that you haven't been here all along. We were guessing how many serious and minor instances of off colour comments and innuendo that Devon will come out with during dinner. Chuck could be right, but actually I think that he'll try to impress you with how clever he is, so I'll go with ten more on each."

Sarah beamed at what Ellie first said, but looked troubled about what she explained, wondering just what this dinner was going to be like.

Ellie came forward to kiss them both on the cheek before moving to the door, looking at them and getting nods from both before she pulled it open. Devon was right outside the door wanting to know what was going on. When Chuck said that Sarah was upset and they were going to his room until dinner he asked. "What's wrong?" and reached for her, but she shrank back and Chuck barked. "Don't touch her!"

Devon had never heard him use that voice before and pulled back in fear. With that, Chuck pushed him out of the way and led Sarah to his room, closing the door firmly behind them firmly, but not before he heard Ellie say.

"What's wrong with you? Are you retarded? He just told us that she can't handle being touched because of her upbringing half an hour ago!"

* * *

Sarah was laying in Chuck's arms on the bed as they talked, until the window opened and a foot swung into the room. Chuck stopped her as she was going for her pistol, as he knew who it was.

"What are you doing Morgan?"

Grimes froze, and then started to smile as he turned around until he saw Sarah. "What is she doing here?"

Chuck quieted Sarah with a touch as he replied. "Sarah was invited, the question is what the hell YOU are doing here?"

"I thought we had plans."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"When you were leaving the Buy More, you said 'See you later', so I thought you were saying to come over."

"That's ridiculous! No, I wasn't telling you to come over, Sarah's here for dinner so she can get to know Ellie, so you need to leave. While we're at it, Don't come in my window again! Use the front door like a normal person."

Grimes whined. "But Chuck, you know that Ellie doesn't let me in the door!"

"Then I guess you won't be coming in any more, because that's your only option!"

"Chuck, buddy, what are you doing? You know we're hetero life partn….."

Chuck barked. "Stop right there! I told you NEVER to say that again! It's ridiculous and infantile and it makes my skin crawl! Get out of here and don't come back!"

Grimes kept whining. "Chuck, don't do this, bros before ho….."

Chuck was off the bed and across the room in a flash, slapping him down before he could finish the sentence.

"Don't you EVER refer to her as anything like that again, do you understand?"

Grimes looked up, crying. "Chuck..."

The look on Chuck's face as he repeated. "I said. Do. You. Understand?" made Grimes almost wet himself. "Chuck..."

Chuck spat. "That's it!" as he grabbed Grimes and projected him out the window with a dwarf toss that almost reached the fountain.

He shouted. "Don't EVER come back here!" then closed and locked the window.

He looked over at Sarah. "We need to add new secure windows and doors for this and Ellie's rooms at least to the work order."

She nodded and came to stand before him, looking up at him in concern. "Are you OK?"

He pulled her into his arms and kissed the top of her head, whispering. "I will be."

When a frantic knocking started at the door he called. "Come in El." and she rushed in. When Devon went to follow her in, Chuck fixed with a look that made him stop at the door.

Ellie ignored that as she asked. "Are you two OK? What happened? I heard shouting?"

Chuck glanced at the window. "Don't worry El, I was just dealing with one of our pest infections."

Ellie went to the window to see what he was talking about, then turned to bark at Devon. "Devon, go and check to see whether Morgan needs attention. If he does call an ambulance but you will NOT bring him into this apartment, do you understand?"

Devon demonstrated that he was sharp as a tack as he gaped. "What?"

Ellie looked as though she wished she could emulate Chuck's dwarf toss with him. "Shit! How are you a surgeon? How hard is it? Morgan is out by the fountain, go and check on him. If he needs attention call an ambulance but you will NOT! Under any circumstances! Bring him into this apartment! Now go!"

He turned and scampered off at that.

She'd already forgotten him by the time he cleared the doorway as she turned back to Chuck and Sarah. "You didn't answer the question, are you two OK?"

Chuck reached out to draw her into a group hug and kissed her on the forehead. "Yeah, we're fine El."

Grimes was fine except for a few scrapes from the landing, he'd just been laying there crying. He wanted to come in to talk to Chuck but Devon talked him out of it. "That's not a good idea Bro, they're all angry in there, the best thing would be to let him cool off."

That managed to get through to him and Grimes shuffled off, sniffling.

Unfortunately Devon decided that he was just the person to turn the mood around at dinner, and show the hottie just who the catch here was to boot, so he went even more overboard than Ellie had feared.

Chuck walked Sarah to her car about two thirds of the way through dinner and Ellie told Devon to go and find a friend's place to spend the night at.

* * *

Mary was halfway across the Atlantic at that point. Her friends were waiting when she landed at Vilnius about five hours later and they took her straight to the airstrip where the Albatros was. It had already been fueled up and readied, so it only took fifteen minutes to run through the checklists and be ready to taxi out to the runway. She embraced and kissed both of her friends then clamoured into the cockpit and took off to fly back to Moscow. Mary took a different route, but flew back the same way she had flown out, low enough to stay off the radar and avoid detection.

She landed at a different airstrip this time, as they couldn't use the same one twice, and Ivan directed her into a hangar. He was delighted to hear that her son was OK, and after thanking him for all of his help, she climbed into another old car, just as deceptively dilapidated looking as the Samara had been and drove back into Moscow. Just as they had changed airstrips and cars, she left the car in a different location and slipped back into the Volkoff compound.

When she entered her room, she sensed a presence, so she turned on the lights to find Volkoff sitting on her bed. He was distraught as he raved that he thought that she'd left him, and she steeled herself to endure his kisses and questions and attentions, reminding herself that it was worth it to know that Charles, and Eleanor and Samantha, were OK.


	3. Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes

**I realise that they never secured the Bartowski apartment in the series, but that didn't make any sense to me. They had an immeasurably important resource in the Human Intersect, but left him hanging out there where anyone could get to him quite easily with no more than a bit of surveillance? That's something that only an idiot would do.**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed, this isn't the real world and it's not a Disney Princess Story.**

Echo Park

Over the next couple of weeks, they had contractors doing painting and other 'maintenance work' on the apartment. Ellie had received a notice from 'the landlord' to say that they'd be doing this maintenance work on the apartment while they they had the contractors on-site making the necessary repairs on the apartment across the courtyard before the new tenant moved in.

What this 'maintenance work' amounted to was putting in new doors and windows right through the apartment that were much more secure and adding the wiring for surveillance equipment throughout the apartment. The only rooms that didn't have any recording devices actually hooked up were Ellie's bedroom and the bathroom. They also turned the bathroom into a panic room and added hidden secure storage for weapons and other equipment in Chuck's room for when Sarah moved in, at which point the surveillance equipment would be removed from the room. How they'd increased the built in wardrobe size to cater for Sarah's needs without making any obvious visible changes was something that Chuck took a little while to work out though (what they did was take a little out of the bathroom and a little out of his room to make the space they needed).

While they were doing this, they were also making all the changes to Casey's apartment and installing the surveillance and security equipment around the compound. The work on their apartment was extensive enough that the 'landlord' officially put Ellie and Chuck up for the week at another small apartment nearby he owned that didn't currently have a tenant. They actually went to Jeff's place, but as Sarah and Casey were the ones watching Chuck, no-one outside of the family knew that.

Ellie derived a good deal of satisfaction out of dumping Devon's clothes and the like in the locker room at the hospital and telling him that they'd had to move out for a while because the owner was getting a lot of maintenance work and painting done while he had contractors in to work on another apartment in the complex.

Burbank

The others wanted to see the video after Jeff, Anna and Casey described the scene of how Grimes came up to Chuck in the Buy More the day after the dwarf toss incident and solemnly said with what he obviously thought was a noble expression. "I forgive you. I won't let this harm our life long relationship." Anna almost wet herself laughing as she described the deer in the headlights look that Chuck had until he recovered enough to answer him.

"Shit! What will it take to make you get the point, a nail gun? I'll try to explain AGAIN. I don't give a shit whether you 'forgive me' or not! I may have tolerated you in the past but we do not have ANY form of relationship, not it the past, not now and CERTAINLY not in the future! What I did last night was something I should have done ten years ago, and I will do it again every time you come near me until you get it through your thick skull that we are not friends, and we DEFINITELY aren't that other stupid shit you keep coming out with. I've tried to be nice about this but that was obviously a mistake, so listen up stupid! Stay the hell away from me, my sister, my girlfriend and my friends Anna and Jeff or else. From now on, if you try to come anywhere near any of us, I will hurt you! Do you understand?"

Grimes' mouth was opening and closing like a fish out of water. "But Chuck, buddy, you don't mean that, we're…."

He broke off and ran when Chuck started to come around the Nerd Herd counter with the same expression he'd had the previous night, just before he'd picked him up and threw him halfway across the courtyard.

Ten minutes later, when Patel sidled up to him, saying. "Well played Charles, it's about time Grimes was made to realise that he's not one of us!" Chuck turned same look on him and said. "The same goes for you Patel, stay the hell away from me, my family and my friends or pay the consequences!"

Patel did actually wet himself, because he was brighter than Grimes (Who wasn't?) and recognised the very real threat of murder and mayhem in the look that had been directed at him. He ran off just as fast as Grimes had, but of course he ran straight to the manager's office. Big Mike came waddling out as fast as he could, flushed and huffing, and barked. "Bartowski! What's this I hear about you threatening your co-workers?"

Chuck glanced at Casey, Casey shook his head but Chuck had had enough, he'd come up with something to deal with the fallout before this was done.

"Yeah, what of it?"

"You can't do that! You better straighten up and do what you're told or I'll…..."

"You'll what, fire me? Go ahead! You know as well as I do that the Nerd Herd is the only really profitable part of this store, and that's entirely due to me, Jeff and Anna, oh, and Skip too." He looked over at Skip Johnson and said. "Sorry Skip!"

Skip just waved it away, he was looking a little shell shocked but he was enjoying the hell out of this!

Chuck turned back to Big Mike. "So if you think I'm going to kowtow to you and those idiots like Tang, Patel or Grimes any more you're sorely mistaken! As the Nerd Herd supervisor, I'm responsible for the proper operation of the Nerd Herd and if I think the idiot sales staff are interfering with the Nerd Herd's operation, or anyone in the Nerd Herd isn't pulling their weight, I'll kick their arses until they understand what's what!"

Big Mike looked like he was going to have a heart attack but Chuck kept going. "Now as I presume that you want the Nerd Herd to keep making money for your store, I suggest you get your fat arse out of my face and waddle back on into your office so you can break out another box of doughnuts and go back to ignoring what happens in the store!"

He watched Big Mike's face purpling as he gasped and clutched at his chest. Eventually he found his breath and bellowed. "You're fired! Get the hell out of here!"

Chuck took off his pocket protector and badge and threw it at him, turning to head out the back to the locker room to get his things.

Anna threw her badge at Big Mike as well, shouting. "If Chuck's going, so am I!" before she followed Chuck.

When a third badge hit him in the chest and Jeff said. "Me too!" as he followed the others, Big Mike began to realise that this wasn't going to go at all well for him.

Most of the people in the store were still standing there, stunned, when the three of them came back out with their bags and the contents of their lockers in boxes. They threw their keys and anything else that belonged to the Buy More on the Nerd Herd counter and walked out without a word.

* * *

Casey was standing there, stunned, as well until he suddenly realised what a shit load of trouble this would bring down and raced out of the store after them. He didn't catch them until they'd reached Anna's Impreza and had placed their boxes on the roof of the car.

"Bartowski! What the hell are you doing? We aren't ready to leave here yet!"

Chuck smirked at him. "Relax Casey, once you un-bunch your panties you'll realise that this is a better exit strategy than us having to come up with a reason for quitting. This way, I told the fat fool a few home truths and he fired me, so my friends decided to walk out with me. We'll go home and have a few drinks to cool off and then we'll realise that we need to get jobs in a hurry to pay the bills so we'll start looking. Nod to Anna!"

"What? Why?"

"Just do it! It's because you're an observant man so you've already seen how things work in the few days that you've been here. You realised from what you heard me say in there just now what a great opportunity this is. The Nerd Herd has just lost the three people who have made this store a profitable operation and people will be looking for someone to deliver the services that we were. You know that you've got enough most of what you need to start a tech services company in your four oh one K and you can get it out in a low interest loan, so you're nodding to Anna and telling me that I can get your number from her to call you about an proposition that you want to discuss with us."

Casey tried to hide a grin as he nodded to Anna while he was speaking. "Remind me not to play poker with you! You weren't pissed off at all, were you?"

"Oh I was plenty pissed off alright, but that had faded to disgust by the time I told Patel off and I was working on putting together a plan by the time that fat fool waddled out of his office."

"But how did you communicate that to Barnes and Wu? I didn't see any signals?"

Anna sniggered. "That's because there weren't any! There was just no way that we were staying in that shit hole without Chuck, and we knew he'd have a plan of some sort, we just didn't know what it was. Anyway, aren't you forgetting something? We've been hooking up for the last couple of days, so don't you think you should be consoling your upset girlfriend of the moment? Get over here!"

Casey chuckled as he plastered a concerned expression on his face and went to hug her.

Chuck kept talking without making it obvious. "OK. This is how it's going to go, Hunter will be a shoestring operation, so our 'service vehicles' will be our personal cars, Anna's Impreza Wagon, Jeff's van and your Nissan Skyline Wagon that's being shipped over from back east when the carrier has space on a back load. I'll borrow my sister's Lancer until I pick up an old Eagle Summit Wagon for me to use. I expect that we'll start getting calls by tomorrow at the latest from our customers and we can work from home until the office is ready."

Casey nodded, but had to ask. "So what's the significance of these vehicles?"

Chuck tapped the roof of the Impreza. "Anna's Impreza has a full ninety nine WRX works rally spec drivetrain under it. Jeff's van goes and handles better than it should and we have a full surveillance van setup for it that we can install and lock down inside fifteen minutes, we can remove it just as quick. Your wagon is a ninety seven Stagea 260RS that's got a race spec R34 GTR drivetrain. Ellie's Lancer is a two thousand and two Charisma, which is basically an elegant five door hatchback version of the Lancer, which has a works rally spec Evolution Six drivetrain. My car is a ninety six Eagle Summit Wagon, which has a works rally spec Evolution Four drivetrain. These cars will fit the bill for what we're doing quite well because they don't look like much, can carry gear for the jobs and they've got the performance to get us out of trouble if needed. The only obvious things that say that they're not stock are the wheels and tyres and the exhaust note, and those are common enough changes so they won't attract attention."

"You don't leave anything to chance, do you?"

Chuck grinned. "Not if I can help it. Anyway, I think you've consoled your girlfriend long enough Casey, you better get back in there, seeing as you're still employed."

Casey nodded, but thought of something else. "Hey, how do these cars compare to the Porsches that Walker loves so much?"

Chuck grinned again. "Well she'd be upset if she was driving a standard Porsche, but I have something that I think she'll be happy with."

Casey snorted at that. "Yeah, I just bet you have….." He froze as Chuck's expression changed, because he was suddenly looking death in the face. Chuck started talking in a voice that chilled him to his core.

"Major Casey, what the files that General Beckman gave you access to may not have shown is that I have a temper that's at least as violent as my mother's, and I am fiercely protective of the people who are important to me. Sarah is VERY important to me, you should consider that before making any further insinuations or disparaging comments."

Casey took it on the chin, as he'd been unprofessional and inappropriate. "I apologise Commander Carmichael, the casual nature of our discussion made me forget who I was for a moment. I was out of line and I should not have made that comment, I will be more careful with what I say in the future."

He hesitated. No, damn it, he had to make this right! "Chuck. Look, I really am sorry. I didn't mean anything by that, my brain to mouth filter just slips sometimes when I'm joking around, like we were before that. I do respect you, and Walker, I want you to know that!"

Chuck thawed a little as he nodded. "Okay John, I'll accept that, we all put our feet in our mouths from time to time. But make no mistake, I was serious about what I said, and anyone making comments like that about Sarah will find out just how much of a temper Mowgli has."

Casey nodded and headed back into the Buy More as they got into the Impreza and took off. Chuck texted Sarah to fill her in on what had happened on the way to Jeff's place.

* * *

Sarah was pissed off when she read the text because Chuck and the others had left their shit jobs while she was stuck serving disgusting so called food to horny teenaged boys who really only came in to try and look down her top or up her skirt. The fact that she had to wear this fukn stupid uniform with a low cut top and short flared skirt, which made it all too easy for them to do that, just added to her aggravation!

She was surprised when Casey came in a couple of hours later for lunch, as she'd presumed that he'd left the Buy More with the others that morning. Luckily they were the only ones in the Wienerlicious so they could talk and he asked. "Have you heard what happened this morning?"

"Just what Chuck texted me, he got fired and the others followed him out, I actually thought that you'd gone too."

"No, it started off when the bearded gnome came up to magnanimously tell him that he forgave him for what he did last night. Bartowski tore him a new one, he came out with a great line that I'll have to remember, 'What will it take to make you get the point, a nail gun?' The idiot just stood there staring at him….."

He caught the look that Sarah was giving him. "Right, anyway, he told him that they WEREN'T friends or that other thing, I don't know what he was talking about there…."

Sarah impatiently waved at him to continue.

She couldn't work out why he was rambling this way, Casey had never been one to ramble as far as she knew. He got the point and moved on.

"He told him that he'd just been tolerating him, but he wasn't going to be tolerating him any more, and to stay the hell away from him, his sister, his girlfriend and his friends, Barnes and Wu, or he'd hurt him. Grimes started whining again, but he ran away when Bartowski started come around the counter. Then Patel came slithering up and tried to piss in Bartowski's pocket and got told the same thing. Patel ran straight to the manager and the fat fool waddled out to have a go at Bartowski."

He glanced at her before he went on. "I tried to stop him, but when the fat fool tried to pressure Bartowski into backing down and apologising for threatening Grimes and Patel he let him have it. Bartowski jumped in and told him to go ahead when he started to threaten to fire him, saying that they both knew that the Nerd Herd was the only profitable part of the store and that he, Barnes and Wu did all the work to make it that way, though he gave a nod to Johnson, saying that he'd contributed as well. Then he went on to say that as the supervisor of the Nerd Herd, it was his responsibility to make it work so if any idiots from sales interfered with them or anyone in the Nerd Herd didn't do their job he'd kick their arses."

"He finished by telling Fat Mike to get out of his face and to waddle back to his office, break out another box of doughnuts and let them do their damn jobs. The manager just about had a heart attack and then screamed at him that he was fired, so Bartowski threw his badge at him and went to clean out his locker. Wu and Barnes said that if Chuck was going, so were they, and they did the same thing. When they came back out, they all threw their keys and everything else on the counter and left."

"It took me a minute to get my head around what had just happened and then I ran after them, and Bartowski told us the plan in the parking lot, saying that by getting himself fired and the others following him, he'd eliminated most of the hassles involved in coming up with a believable reason for quitting, which would also have been harder to explain when they found out that all their customers had also followed them. He also gave us a better story for starting the new business, laying it out that I'd heard what he was saying about them being the ones who made the business work, which gave me the idea of starting a new company with them to take over the technical support business. I can borrow most of what we need from my four oh one K, so we'd just need to find the rest somewhere else." He nodded to her at that.

"He had me nod to Wu to say that he could get my number off her because I wanted to talk business with them, then Wu reminded me that I should be comforting her, seeing as we'd supposedly been hooking up for the past couple of days. While I was doing that, Bartowski outlined the framework he'd put together for the business. As it is going to be on a shoestring budget we'll be using our personal cars for the service calls, and we'll be working from home until we get an office."

He shook his head. "Those cars he's organised are amazing Walker, they've got a Impreza Wagon, Lancer hatchback and Summit Wagon that all have works rally drivetrains under them, a Nissan Skyline Wagon with a race spec R34 GTR drivetrain and that van. Did you know that they have a high performance van with a full surveillance van setup that they can install and take out quickly?"

He hesitated. "Did Bartowski tell you that I almost got my arse handed to me?"

Sarah stiffened. "What did you do Casey?"

"What makes you think….."

He stopped and shook his head. "No. Yeah, it was all my screw up. We were joking around a little about the cars and I asked how they compared to the Porsches you like. He said that you'd be upset if you were driving a normal Porsche but he had something you'd like and I made a stupid crack about that….."

"It had been nearly twenty years since the last time I was really scared, but it's happened twice in the three days since I met him. The first time was how close we came with that bomb at the security conference, and that look in his eye when I made the crack about you…."

"I've never doubted my ability to take anyone on before, but looking him in the eye at that moment, I knew that I wouldn't have a hope in hell. That's one hell of a man you've got there Walker."

Sarah nodded. "What happened?"

"I formally apologised, then realised that I had to make this right and REALLY apologised."

"And?"

"And he accepted the real one, took me at my word and let it go. I'm sure that he knew that I was being totally honest in my apology. But still, I came so close to screwing everything up and he just let me off the hook."

Sarah looked around to make sure that no-one was coming. "Charlie wears his heart on his sleeve Casey, if he accepts you he'll stand up to anyone and anything for you. My father took me away when I was seven while Mama was away working on the Panama invasion. Charlie was only eight then, but I'd already seen him taking on three or four boys who were twice his size at a time to protect me or others who needed protection, and beating them. Don't underestimate Ellie either, I don't know whether you looked at those pictures at Uncle Bry's, but Chuck wasn't the only one who earned their SEAL Trident."

"What? There are no female SEALs!"

"She may not be serving in a unit, but the certificate and the pictures said that she earned the right to wear the trident and was accepted by them. She went through at the same time as Chuck went through, going by the pictures. Don't forget who their mother is, and believe me, most of those stories they tell about Frost are true."

She looked at the clock. "Damn, it will be another four hours before I can get out of here! Are you finishing then too?"

Casey nodded.

"Our best bet is to head over to Jeff's then so we can talk this over with Chuck and the others then discuss it with the Director and the General. Have you notified them about what happened yet?"

"I just sent them a text saying roughly what happened and that Bartowski's plan is a better way to explain starting the business."

Sarah nodded. "Come over when you finish then and I'll give you a lift over there."

Casey said "Affirmative." and headed back to the Buy More.

Silver Lake

When they got to Jeff's, the Summit Wagon and the Stagea were out the front. Casey had a look over 'his' car, and liked what he saw, but he still thought that he'd need a sedan to carry his weapons around out of sight. He was in the mood for a Crown Vic.

Chuck laid out what he'd done and why in more detail for them, and Sarah and Casey agreed that while it hadn't been planned that way, this was looking a lot better than the original plan. It was also agreed that Sarah and Casey would report that Chuck and Casey had sat down to talk it over with Jeff and Anna and they'd agreed to join this new company with Chuck.

Well they would if the new company got going quick enough, to move things along and make things better for Anna, they were reporting that she was staying with Jeff until she could get a paying job again. The reason for this was that she'd been thrown out of the apartment she was sharing when she couldn't pay her share of the rent that was due that day. Her need to get herself a job in a hurry would be used to steamroller over any red tape.

The story was that Chuck called Sarah then and got her to come over. After explaining the situation, he'd made the pitch to her and she'd agreed to front the rest of the money they needed to start the business out of the sexual harassment settlement she got from her last job. This meant that they had the money and the people they needed to start the business, and they'd be running it from Jeff's house until they could find the premises they needed.

They wouldn't have money to invest in service vehicles until the business really took off, so they'd agreed to use their own cars for service calls. Chuck (and Casey, but the others didn't know that) had gone out and picked up something cheap because he didn't have car.

They were already getting calls from the Nerd Herd's customers who were desperate for someone to fix their problems. They took the people's details and told them that they were currently talking to someone about jobs with a new company and they'd call them back tomorrow.

* * *

Chuck emailed all the details through to Uncle Lang and Auntie Di so when Sarah and Casey called it in, they would all be working to the same script. They showed the expected aggravation about the asset getting himself fired, but after it had been explained they conceded that there was a silver lining in the fact that the ones they wanted had both followed him and having it happen this way would be a lot easier to explain.

The Director and General advised them that they had identified one possible building, but had been looking for something which might be better. With this new development though, they'd stop looking and close the deal for that building immediately. The contractors who were in L.A. working on the security enhancements for the apartments could start working on the office building straight away and get the bunker structure and hidden accesses for it started.

Once those aspects were sorted, they could occupy the offices and start working out of there because the rest of the work could be done after hours without the civilians knowing. Needless to say, the Hunter Security and Technology office would get all the same security upgrades as Ellie and Casey's apartments did.

After they got the 'notification' out of the way, Casey talked to Chuck about the Stagea and his concerns about weapons storage. Chuck laughed and took him out to the wagon, showing him where the releases for the rear seat squab and back and front passenger seat squab were and setting his accesses for them up. Casey's concerns went out the door then, as there was enough room to hold quite a respectable armoury between the three storage locations. Hell, there was even room to carry a fifty cal sniper rifle. He was even more impressed when Chuck told him that all of the cars had the same weapons storage.

* * *

They were only working out of Jeff's for three weeks before they moved into the Hunter Security and Technology office. Ellie and Chuck had moved back into their apartment by then, so Anna didn't have to sleep on the couch any more (she hadn't been brave enough to suggest sharing Chuck's bed as they'd done so many times in the past).

Anna had expected that Chuck would have told Sarah about the way they'd shared a bed as friends, but she was surprised (and a little worried) when she found out that he'd also told her about just how far they'd gone on missions when it was necessary to protect their covers. Well, that was why he'd done it anyway, she'd jumped at the chance. She'd always had a bit of a thing for Chuck because he was adorable and so damned sexy. While what they'd done on missions could be explained away though, she'd looked up the CIA's Enforcer, and she was worried, because Chuck's sweet little Sammie was one hell of a scary woman.

Echo Park

Back in Casa Bartowski, Ellie and Chuck had settled in again, and Sarah moved the majority of her clothes, including those grannie jammies that her 'puritan upbringing' required, in. Ellie decided to wait for Devon to raise the question about moving back in, and she was a little suspicious when it took him a further two weeks to do so, so she did some checking and found out that he'd been shacking up with one of the nurses, one who had quite a reputation.

Ellie told Devon the new rules before he moved back in, saying that Sarah was staying over at least two or three nights a week now because they'd gotten a lot closer when Chuck stayed with her while the apartment was being done up, so they had to be more considerate of the sensibilities that came from her upbringing. That meant that there was to be no more lounging around the house or working out with his shirt off or wearing those revealing bike shorts. And he had to remember not to touch her at all! Devon agreed, but she knew that he had no intention of following the rules.

They had a pretty good idea about how he'd behave, so none of them were at all surprised when the first night that Sarah came over after he'd moved back in, he came out shirtless, wearing only those bike shorts (Having obviously spent a lot of time grooming for this.) and tried to hug her. Chuck slugged him in the guts, hard enough to leave him curled up on the floor in a foetal position, and then had an argument with Ellie over the top of him.

"What the hell Ellie? You told us that he understood and had agreed to the way things have to be around here now that Sarah is staying over!"

"I DID tell him and he agreed to go along with that!"

"Well it sure as hell didn't look like it, in fact it looked like he was making a point to do everything I asked you to make sure he didn't do! Look, this isn't going to work. Either he's leaving or we are, which is it going to be?"

"Chuck, you can't just tell me to throw my boyfriend out!"

"Get your ears checked Ellie, I didn't say that at all, I told you that you had to make a choice and I guess you've made it. Come on Sarah, we need to pack, sorry Honey."

"Chuck, Stop! Stop putting words in my mouth! If anyone's going it's him! He promised me that he'd go along with the new house rules, but you're right, he seemed to be trying to make sure that he did the exact opposite. Shit, if I didn't know better I'd say that he was trying to show off to Sarah in an attempt to win her over like that slutty nurse he was shacking up with while we were out of the apartment. Well, she can have him! He's gone as soon as he can get on his feet! Please Chuck? I can't lose you, you're the only family I have! Let me get rid of him and we'll be fine, I promise!"

Devon lifted his head at that and moaned. "You aren't throwing me out of my home!"

Ellie fixed him with a look that made him shut up. "This isn't YOUR home, you pig, it's OUR home! The lease is in my name and my brother and I have been living here since we were in our teens. Oh no, you're leaving alright Devon Woodcomb, in fact you've got ten minutes to get your shit and get the hell out of my apartment!"

She smirked as she watched him try to struggle to his feet. "OK, we'll make that fifteen in consideration of your fragile state after what my little brother did to you. If you aren't out of here by then though, you'll find out just how much damage he can do to you. Actually make that WE can do to you, because I'd like to get a few licks in too, you two faced two timing bastard. You've now got twelve minutes, MOVE!"

Once again, the tool was totally predictable, and when Chuck went to drag him out when his fifteen minutes were up, he tried to hit him over the head with a barbell. Chuck easily ducked out of the way and grabbed the barbell so that he could add to its momentum and make sure that it impacted up under his ribs with a punishing blow. Devon struggled to his feet with effort and swung madly at him. Chuck caught his hand when he tried that, and then looked into Devon's eyes and bent his right thumb back until it broke as he told him that he really should give serious thought to returning to the east coast, as he mightn't be as forgiving the next time he saw him.

Devon was absolutely terrified of him by now, so he didn't say a word as Chuck dragged him bodily through the apartment and dumped him on the rim of the fountain before going back in to throw all of his shit into his bags and bring them out, dumping them beside his Mercedes. That done, Chuck went back to drag him over to the car and make him unlock it, throwing his bags in the back seat before shoving him into the driver's seat and telling him to go, pointing out that it would be a VERY bad idea for him to try and seek any form of retribution, or to come back here ever again.

He looked him in the eye and gave him the look that had frightened Casey as he reminded him. "Don't forget, doing anything to piss us off any more than you already have would be a VERY bad idea!" Devon only just missed hitting the car parked across the street because he reversed out in such a hurry. Then he went careening down the street, driving so erratically that other cars were having to swerve out of the way.

Chuck expected Ellie to be upset when he went back in, after all, even though he was little more than a walking sex toy they had been together for six years and they had had some good times. That was why he was surprised to find her and Sarah laughing as they toasted his eviction. Sarah pulled him in for a kiss and reminded him that Ellie, and him, were finally free from having to look over their shoulders to see what he was doing all the time.

She also reminded him about how she told him she'd felt when she found out that Larkin had been screwing anything that would stay still long enough. She looked at Ellie and said. "I wouldn't be surprised to find that Ellie felt the same way?"

Ellie nodded sadly at that. "Yeah. It's stupid, I know, but after a while you convince yourself that there has to be something behind all the empty words, doesn't there? Then you find that they're doing the same thing with every other stupid bitch who'll give in to them. It just makes you feel stupid, disgusted and angry! So being done with all of that is a relief."

She started to cry then and Chuck went to hold her. They went through two bottles of champagne, and then started drinking seriously. Chuck put Ellie in bed with a bucket beside her and made sure she could get to the bathroom quickly if she needed to before he carried Sarah off to bed, as she wasn't in much better a state.

With the walking sex toy and the Buy Morons out of the way, there wasn't any reason to hold off moving in together for the 'cover' so Chuck had a few quiet words with Ellie when she woke up to set up a scene on camera and Sarah collected the rest of her things from the hotel when she went to check out the next day.

* * *

Everyone on the video conference was having trouble keeping a straight face when she reported that the asset's sister had kicked out her boyfriend after he tried to make a move on her and they'd bonded over drinks afterwards. In the morning the sister had all but insisted that she move in because she was so good for Chuck, and Mr Bartowski had agreed as he knew that this fitted into the plan for his protection.

She'd also made the argument that Jeff and Anna were already convinced that they were a couple, and the fact that she'd thrown all of her money into the business for him showed her level of commitment to him. So, the requirement to move in for 24/7 protection had been met in not much over a month.

This was the last major step in a whirlwind of developments over the past month.

It had only taken Sarah one more day after Chuck, Jeff and Anna left to set up a situation where she threw something at 'Scooter' and got herself fired. Casey had fun threatening Tang and other lowlifes in the store for two more days until the Manager tried to intimidate him the same way he tried with Chuck. When Casey told him to get out of his face before he ripped his head off and shoved it up his arse, the fat fool squeaked that he was fired as he tried to waddle/run away from him.

The cover business had taken off strong and just kept getting better. Officially, the workload also made it easy to get the civilian employees out of the office whenever they had to discuss Intersect business.

Ms Wu had stayed on to share the house with Mr Barnes rather than waste time looking for another place to live as they were comfortable with doing that as friends and she was too busy anyway. Having them sharing a house like that also made it easier to keep an eye on the civilian employees.

By cancelling the accommodation costs at the Maison23 and the rental of her Porsche, the on-going operational costs had also been markedly reduced.

The official story was that Agent Walker had agreed that, now that this was a long term assignment, the Porsche she was driving would not fit into their cover at all, so with Mr Bartowski's assistance she had gone out and bought a 2005 Lancer Wagon that would fit into their cover life much better for herself. They used the cover story that she'd sold her Porsche to get the extra money they needed to fund the business, as they'd found that it cost more than Casey had originally thought to set up a business, which also shored up the cover business story. Her wagon was, of course, far more than it appeared on the surface, with a works rally spec full Evolution Nine drivetrain underneath it. This one had actually been tweaked quite a bit and was faster than any of the Porsches that Sarah had driven, and Chuck was right, giving it its head did make her happy.

Chuck DID have a special Porsche for Sarah, to the casual observer it was a nice black Porsche Cabriolet, but this was actually one of the prototypes for the new cabriolet design that was lighter and tighter than the previous one, and between the carbon fibre body panels and other parts and the RSR mechanicals underneath, it was no ordinary Porsche. She didn't use it as her daily driver, but she had a hell of a lot of fun with it when she took it out.

* * *

It didn't take long for them to settle into the Hunter Security and Technology offices. Sarah was surprised to find that she enjoyed running the office and dealing with minor technical problems that people brought in, as Casey was to find that he didn't mind the service calls and installations he was doing either. His years of experience in subverting security systems actually made him quite good at setting them up and trouble shooting them, so he was generally their go to guy on facility security systems.

They removed the recording devices from Chuck's room after Sarah officially moved in, and a few nights later she decided to start moving their relationship forward. She smiled to herself as she decided to have him wake up with a smile and take things from there, but that smile was wiped from her face when he mumbled angrily in his sleep. "Anna, stop it! How many times do I have to tell you? I like you but we're not doing that!"

When she stopped to think about what he'd said, her smile returned though, as while Anna had obviously done this more than once before, it was just as obvious that he'd always rejected her. Sarah leaned in to whisper in his ear. "But Chuck, I thought we agreed that you are my de-facto husband, is this not right for husband and wife?"

His eyes shot open at that and she was surprised how quickly he leapt to fully awake. He looked at her, worried, as he tried to work out what had been real and what had been a dream. She leant in to kiss him softly so he knew that she wasn't upset with him before she spoke. "I thought that you told me that you and Anna only had sex on missions when necessary?"

He nodded as he put together what had happened. "But Anna tried to take some of your sleepovers further outside of missions, didn't she?"

He nodded again. She kissed him again. "While the last thing a woman wants to hear from her man when she's trying to show him what he means to her is another woman's name, hearing you reject her like that got you off the hook. How many times did she try that?"

"A few….. Look. Don't take it out on her please? She was lonely and didn't have anyone else, the only guy at the Buy More who wasn't a bottom feeder other than Jeff and I was Skip, and that was complicated because Anna and I were supposed to have been together. Picking up guys in clubs was rarely a good experience for her, and it was often after those times that she'd try it. It never happened, she was just lonely and miserable and looking for something, so can we let it go please?"

She smiled and leant in for another kiss. "You are too adorable for your own good Charlie. OK, I'm not prepared to just let it go, but I will promise that I won't do more than talk to her about it. Don't worry, I'm just going to make sure that she understands that you're mine now and that isn't to happen ever again, OK?"

Chuck pulled her in for a kiss and she got what she'd been planning on. Well, rather more than that actually because it was magical. She'd never felt anything like that before.

* * *

It was obvious what was happening when Sarah sent Chuck, Jeff and Casey out on service calls the next day. Chuck looked worried, so Sarah kissed him and said. "I promise!" before she pushed him out the door.

Once the guys were gone, she pointed to a chair and barked. "Sit!" Anna hastily sat down, looking worried.

Anna thought that Sarah was trying to intimidate her as she just sat there, looking at her, but in fact she was trying to work out what to say. Eventually she sorted it out in her head and started speaking.

"Last night, I decided that, now that we had Ellie's walking sex toy and the surveillance out of the way, it was time to move my relationship with Chuck forward. Can you imagine how upset I was to hear him say YOUR name when I was trying to wake him up nicely so we could make love?"

Anna was terrified now and tried to speak, but Sarah held up a finger to stop her. "I stopped being upset with Chuck when I heard that he was telling you to stop, like he always did, but that doesn't mean that you're off the hook. Just think yourself lucky that he cares so much about you as a friend and made me promise not to hurt you."

She drew a breath before continuing. "I know better than anyone how much Charlie can get under your skin, I think I've loved him all my life and on-one's ever taken his place….. Here's the thing though Anna, you need to get it through your head that he's mine, I'm his, and you aren't going to come between us. I won't get in the way of your friendship with Chuck, as long as you respect what we have and don't try to interfere with that, but if I EVER hear that you've tried anything like that again, all bets are off and I WILL hurt you! Can you agree to that? If not, I'm going to have to insist that you have nothing beyond a professional relationship with him."

Anna nodded sadly. "Yeah, I knew that I'd never have him anyway, your memory got in the way whenever I tried to get close to him, he'd say 'Sammie' wistfully and I knew that I didn't have a chance."

She looked up at Sarah. "Look. I know that I shouldn't have been trying that on with him, it was just… It was usually after I'd been with some loser and I'd look at Chuck and KNOW that it'd be so much better with him, so I'd take another shot at showing him that I could make him happy."

Sarah actually smiled when she nodded. "Yeah, that's what Chuck said, that's why he tried to get me to drop it, and why I promised to do no more than talk to you. So, can you honestly promise not to try and take it any further than the friendship he's offering again?"

Anna nodded again. "Yes, because short of having him, which isn't going to happen, having his friendship is the best thing there is and I won't do anything else to jeopardise that. You've got one hell of a man there Sammie."

Sarah smiled. "Oh I know! I know! Why does everyone seem to think that I need to be told that?"

Anna smiled for the first time. "Oh I don't know, maybe it's the whole dumb blonde thing?"

Sarah mock glared at her. "It sounds like you're asking to go a few rounds Ms Wu!"

Anna leaned forward. "Actually, I'd love that! Ellie is incredible, and Chuck's even better, but I'd love a chance to spar with someone new so I don't know any of their moves."

Sarah nodded musingly. "It would be good to work out a few of the kinks. God knows I haven't had a chance for a decent workout with anyone who was any good for ages. We've included a gym in the bunker under HST, so when it's done we can try it out."

She paused and smirked. "It may help you work out those frustrations, too."

Anna laughed. "Oh it is SO on Ms Walker!"

Both of them were happy to accept the fact that they'd definitely broken the ice, and it was looking as though they might have a good chance at friendship.

Sarah brought up something she hadn't thought of before. "What about Jeff, is he any good?"

Anna shook her head. "Not really at fighting or shooting, no, but he's got a hell of a brain. Most technical aspects of our jobs he's a wiz at, he's surprisingly good at charming women too. Mature women anyway, he isn't much good at picking up young girls but I think that's partly because he thinks it's wrong, so that's Chuck's job..."

She stopped and looked at Sarah, but Sarah shook her head sadly. "Don't worry Anna, I understand all too well what the requirements of the job are, I've been doing it since I was seventeen. I convinced my father to go straight and stay in one place long enough for me to finish school and have shot at university, but he broke his word yet again and went back to running cons without telling me. He got himself arrested a couple of months before I graduated and some guy from the CIA caught me when I was trying to grab the emergency stash and run."

"My father must have told them EVERYTHING about us though, because they knew too much for me to have any chance of getting away from them. That was why I gave in and accepted their 'offer' to join the CIA. At least they put me through Harvard, I was doing Law and Business Administration there but of course I was also studying a lot of other things on the side and doing missions before the end of my first year. So yeah, I do know what they require of you in this job."

She shook herself. "So. Deal? You don't try to steal my man and I don't break your face?"

Anna grinned at that. "Yeah. That sounds like a fair deal. Boss."

Sarah got up and came around the desk to hug Anna, thinking that Chuck and Ellie were rubbing off on her, because this felt nice.


	4. Good Mission

**Yeah, they're gone, unless I feel the need to kick the dog, in which case I'll drag them back in, kicking and screaming ;^)**

 **Slight amendment in Changes, Sarah DOES get the Porsche that Chuck had for her, but it's normally kept stored away. Her 'normal' car is actually a 2005 Lancer Wagon that has a full up-specced Evo IX drivetrain under it (the Evo IX Wagon WAS made actually, but only for a limited run in Japan) to fit in with the rest of them. As so many fics have pointed out, having Sarah driving a Porsche Carrera Cabriolet does NOT fit into their cover at all.**

 **Once more for the Anonymous Cowards from FTA, if you want to say something about me or my stories, man up and do it as yourself. Whining at me via 'anonymous reviews' because I wrote something you don't like will just be deleted. You're obviously masochists as well as cowards anyway as you clearly hate everything I write, so you only read it to find some excuse to whine about it. That's rather pathetic when you think about it.**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed, this isn't the real world, and it ain't no Disney Princess story neither.**

Chuck tried to avoid thinking about what was going on back at the office, but the service calls he was sent on weren't challenging enough to hold his attention. He conceded that there was some justification in Sarah's viewpoint that Anna had been interfering with what was her's, but he just hoped that Anna wouldn't challenge her and that Sarah would keep her temper in check. Love her as he did, he wasn't blind to the fact that she had one hell of a temper.

When he finished his jobs, he was still worried, he'd gone to call to find out what happened over a dozen times but stopped himself each time because that would make Sarah think that he didn't trust her to keep her word. As he got back into the Summit though he said 'Fuck it!' and punched in the code to unlock the full performance of the engine, he DID trust her, but he also knew how Anna liked to push until she got a reaction. If she did that when Sarah was as angry as she'd been under her facade last night, it'd be on like Donkey Kong!

He didn't have any trouble outrunning the cop cars that saw him on the way back as the Summit was faster than any of the cop cars, but more to the point his training and that Summer of Touge he'd spent in Japan meant that they had no hope. He was having fun, actually, as he rarely had the opportunity to let loose like this. He'd really enjoyed that month he'd spent with the touge racers when he went over to pick up the Summit from the shop that built it for him back in ninety six. The racers there had been surprisingly accepting of the lanky American kid who'd been brought into their world by the son of the owner of one of the speed shops.

Walking back into the office, Chuck was relieved to see that there were no signs of mayhem. He was also more than a little surprised that they actually seemed to be having fun together. When the police scanner on Sarah's desk squawked, he had a good idea of what they were laughing about though, and that was confirmed when Sarah got up and came over to kiss him, asking. "Hi Honey, did you happen to see that little car that's been leading the cops on a wild chase over half of Los Angeles for the last half hour?"

"Um, no, I didn't see anything like that, no."

She slapped him on the chest. "Are you really trying to pretend it wasn't you? Didn't you think that Ellie would have told me about how you spent a month over there touge racing after you got that Japanese speed shop to build the Summit for you in ninety six? Or how you were flying into Korea on missions while you were over there?"

Looking him in the eye she added. "But more to the point, do you REALLY think that I didn't know how worried you'd be about what was going on back here? As soon as Anna and I had had our talk, I pulled out the scanner to see just how long you could hold out. I have to admit, you held out a lot longer than I expected."

"What do you mean? I just finished my jobs and… OK yes, I was worried. I DO trust you, but you, my love, have one hell of a temper, and this little minx just loves to push people's buttons. With how angry you were last night, I didn't think it would have taken much prodding from her to make you lose your temper, so I expected to come back to find the place, and one or both of you, wrecked."

Her eyes narrowed. "Do you really think that she could take me?"

He smiled and kissed her on the forehead. "No, but she's good, Anna gives Ellie and I a serious workout. She would have given you a run for your money and that would have probably led to one or both of you getting hurt. I didn't want to see that so I tried to get back here to smooth over the situation before that happened, though I'm glad to see that I wasn't needed."

Sarah turned to look at Anna. "I think he just insulted both of us."

Anna shook her head with a smile. "Nope, maybe you, but he has me pegged. I normally would have poked and prodded until I got a bite from you, but you were pretty scary, the way you were sitting there ready to blow and you had a right to be angry. I shouldn't have kept doing what I did but I, well we talked about why I did. I knew that I was in the wrong so I just told you the truth. And I've been doing martial arts since I could walk, I'm pretty good."

Sarah shook her head ruefully. "No, he's got me pegged too, Charlie knows my temper, I just didn't think he saw through the facade last night. It sounds like our sparring sessions may be more interesting than I thought they'd be though. Just so you know, I've been doing martial arts since I could walk too, Auntie Mary taught me."

The look on her face as she pulled Chuck down for a kiss said that he was forgiven.

* * *

A week after that, the new Intersect Team had their first mission. Part of the daily intel that Chuck was going through to see whether the Intersect offered anything of use was a string of pictures of suspicious deaths that had come from European Intelligence agencies. The word on the grapevine was that these deaths were connected to some sort of serious arms deal, but no-one knew what it was. That was why the powers that be were hoping that Chuck would come up with something from the pictures.

Chuck wasn't getting from them, but when he turned to respond to a crack Jeff made as he passed on the way out to the break room for his coffee break, the article about an art auction on the front page of the paper he had under his arm triggered a flash from the intersect and that gave them the connection between the deaths. His question about La Ciudad certainly got Sarah and Casey's attention, as the elusive arms dealer had been on everyone's most wanted lists for a while.

As it was urgent, Sarah officially sent the 'civilian employees' out on service calls and she and Casey went out to the break room to have a video conference with Langston and Diane. After fifteen minutes of the expected debate over whether the asset was really ready to go into the field, they came back out to tell Chuck that he had his first official mission with the Intersect team.

With limited government resources available for operations of this nature, being in Los Angeles was a godsend, as it didn't take long to organise for the dress, tuxedo and bar tender's outfits that they'd be need for the function, and it was even simpler matter to 'rent' the stretch Towncar that they'd be using. They had a collection of cars to cater for most occasions in the warehouse where Sarah's Porsche was kept, but the government couldn't officially know about them. What they did to get around that was create a shadow rental company that they 'rented' the cars from whenever they officially needed them, they'd been doing this for over ten years now, and the setup worked well for them.

The collection at the warehouse included the first of their sleepers, the ninety three Subaru Impreza Wagon with the ninety four grille and ninety three works rally spec WRX drivetrain that had preceded the ninety six Summit Wagon as Ellie and Chuck's transport and Ellie's two thousand and two Lancer Hatchback, as she 'traded it in' on the two thousand and seven Subaru Forester XT Sports with a potent rally spec WRX STI drive train under it after Sarah moved in with the two thousand and two Lancer Wagon because they decided that the two Lancers were too similar and people might take notice if they were parked together out front of the apartments all the time. Besides, Ellie was a doctor and as such was expected to keep up appearances, a doctor with a plain old car is liable to attract too much attention from people gossiping. Chuck had had the Forester built as part of his normal practice to add a new understated performance car to the herd every few years so that they'd have an array of cars to drive that wouldn't stand out.

Sarah and Chuck actually had fun going clothes shopping for the mission, as this was the most freedom they've had on the job since this started. They could act like a couple, helping each other choose their outfits for the night, and in the back of their heads was the thought 'this is how it could be'. All too soon though, they had what they needed and headed back to the HST office in Silver Lake.

* * *

The need to wear a robe to prevent NSA or CIA pencil pushers getting their rocks off at the sight of her naked or almost naked as she moved to and from the bathroom while she was getting ready on the surveillance footage annoyed Sarah, all the more because it was only now that she really understood why Chuck had been angry about the surveillance. While Chuck was in the bathroom she sent an email to Director Graham requesting the removal, or at the very least downgrading, of the internal surveillance in the Bartowski apartment on the basis of her Agent's rights to privacy. She cited the now enhanced security controls of the apartment, extensive external surveillance and constant monitoring of all doors and windows as factors that rendered the internal surveillance unnecessary.

As they were walking out to get into the Towncar, Sarah was asking herself why she'd insisted on wearing the eye catching red dress tonight. She wasn't happy when she realised that she was angry at Chuck because, while he'd been verbally rejecting her when he thought she was Anna, he'd kept holding her like a lover would as she lay naked in his arms, and his body had certainly been reacting to what he thought was Anna's ministrations. Realising that she'd been unconsciously planning to lash out at Chuck by trying to make him jealous of the attention she received from other men made her extremely clingy and weepy as she tried to explain it to him.

She hadn't pulled herself together by the time they reached the venue for the auction, so Chuck asked Uncle Bry to go around the block again (Casey was already inside, and Anna and Ellie were waiting for Bry in the van with Jeff). The next time they came around, Chuck had Sarah calmed down. She'd accepted that he'd just been unconsciously physically going through the motions as if it were a mission, so they could both understand the other's position and were OK, and she'd had time to hastily fix her makeup, so they went on in.

* * *

The drama in the Towncar seemed to set the tone for the night though, because before they even got into the auction, some klutz bumped into Chuck and dumped his hors d'oeuvre onto Chuck's shirt. The fact that the arrogant bastard didn't even apologise made Chuck want to give him a nudge down the stairs, but he refrained and ducked into the men's room to try and remove the evidence of the encounter from his shirt.

While he was in there trying to clean up the mess, a man came up to wash his hands at the basin next to him and Chuck flashed on his face. The extended flash brought up many images that were related to the ones to do with La Ciudad that he'd seen earlier, so the obvious connection to be made was that this man was La Ciudad. Chuck was blankly staring at the mirror when the man tersely asked. "Do I know you?"

Deciding to play on his obvious distraction, Chuck's response was. "What? Oh no, sorry. I was just trying to decide whether to pull the plug on the night, you see my shirt's ruined because some fool was waving food about and…..."

The man just looked annoyed, so hopefully the ruse worked. "Sorry, not your problem. I guess I was just miles away. Have a good night." With that, Chuck hastily exited the men's room and went to notify Sarah that he may have located La Ciudad.

When the man came out, Chuck pointed him out to Sarah, but they were both too tied up in trying to reassure each other as Sarah explained, almost in tears, that she was going to have to work him for information to note that the man had been scanning the foyer for Chuck. When he spotted him, he of course noted the beautiful blonde in that red dress he was talking to, which created a problem.

Sarah told Chuck to go wait at the bar with Casey while she engaged the man he saw and he did as he was told. When he saw her walking up to the man, he turned away, knowing that it would be harder for both of them if he was watching her work the man. That was why it was Casey who saw the two large men turn up and quietly hustle Sarah out at gunpoint.

When Casey said that Sarah had been taken at gunpoint, Chuck told him to get after them. Casey took off at a run, because the way he said. "Make sure you get her back safe!" chilled him, he didn't want to think about what might happen to him if anything happened to Walker.

The men who took Sarah started talking after they left the auction, and from what she heard over Sarah's mic, Ellie quickly determined that they were headed for the roof, so she, Bry and Anna rushed to get up there ahead of them (they were already inside the hotel, geared up to move in as support). What they saw when the men got Sarah up there enraged them, but they followed her lead and held off as she tried to learn who these men were and what they were there for.

* * *

Back at the auction, Chuck heard the clicks that indicated the Ellie, Bry and Anna were on the roof ahead of Sarah and her captors, but he also knew from Sarah's breathing and her sharp exclamation of. "Stop that!" that she was being thoroughly and inappropriately searched. To stop himself rushing up there and taking the men apart, he decided to see whether he could find the painting that had come up in the flashes that had led them here, so he downed his drink and started wandering around the auction.

It didn't take long for him to locate the painting, but it had a different frame now, and that triggered images and drawings of the other frame which showed how it had been made to conceal a number of containers for small amounts of plutonium and enriched uranium, which together would be enough to build a small nuclear bomb. The fact that it had originally been created by a 'friendly' government organisation to get past nuclear restrictions was something to be dealt with elsewhere, but it might explain the English accent of the guy on the roof. He surreptitiously whispered into his mic. "They may be British SIS, also the picture frame's been changed but it was being used to smuggle plutonium."

He went back to looking at the painting, trying to see whether he could get anything else from it, but he was interrupted by a soft voice. "Beautiful painting, no?" He smiled at the Latina beauty who'd spoke and engaged in the expected banter with her, until the music of the Tango began.

Malena's face flushed with an almost sexual excitement as she moaned. "I LOVE to Tango!"

Chuck smiled and said. "Who doesn't?" but was caught out when she looked at him with interest and asked. "Do you?"

He started to say 'No' when he picked up on what she was asking but stopped himself. Standing around listening to what was going on up on the roof would drive him crazy, and he was supposed to be locating La Ciudad. Being out on the dance floor with everyone looking at them could be the perfect opportunity to do that, so he smiled and said. "Of course." as he took her hand to lead her onto the dance floor.

Malena was a good partner to attract the attention he wanted, as she was beautiful, as well as being a capable and impassioned dancer, even though he wished that he was dancing with Sarah. She was certainly putting on a good show though, and her actions made it clear to everyone watching what her intentions were for after the dance. The problem came when he dipped her at the end of the dance, and her hair fell away from her neck to reveal a nasty scar that he flashed on. The flash told him that Malena was, in fact, La Ciudad. He whispered into his mic. "Guys? I've found La Ciudad!"

He brought her up for the expected kiss, well not the one she was expecting but enough to fit the circumstances, and led her off the dance floor to the applause of their audience. He just had to keep her occupied until the others got back to arrest her.

They started talking, and he was diverting her obvious hints about coming up to her room, when it all went to shit. A loathed voice from the past that he'd never wanted to hear again piped up behind him. "What are you doing here Bartowski? Were you too stupid to get the message that you don't belong in our world when Jill dumped your sorry arse?"

When he turned to look at Shari Walters, Jill's bitchy room mate back at Stanford, he snorted. The last six years hadn't been at all kind to her, and from the way her face was flushed, she'd been one of the women he'd heard moaning because they were turned on by the display that he and Malena had put on out on the dance floor. He also flashed on her and her police record, and as stomach turning as it was, that incident could give him a way to get rid of her in a hurry. "Hello Shari, I heard about the dog incident, kudos to you for being brave enough to come out in public again after that!"

Shari looked absolutely horrified that anyone could know about THAT and tried to say something, but no words came out. After opening her mouth to speak a few times, she just turned and ran off, pushing people out of the way as she tried to get out the door in a hurry.

Malena raised an eyebrow, and Chuck didn't need to fake looking embarrassed as he said. "An unfortunate incident with her neighbour's German Shepherd." her eyes widened at that but she shook her head.

"As….. interesting as that is, I actually wanted to know why you lied to me and told me your name was Carmichael, Mister Bartowski?"

At that, Chuck felt a pistol being pressed into his back, she must have signalled her men while he was dealing with Shari. He ground his teeth, as he was fairly sure that he could get out of this with minimal, if any, damage to himself, but he couldn't guarantee that there'd be no collateral damage when they started shooting and he'd also be blowing his cover as a bumbling civilian if he did anything in here.

That was why he just went along with it when Malena nodded to the door and he was prodded to get moving by the gun at his back.

* * *

Up on the roof, the man that Chuck had talked to in the men's room was demanding to know who Sarah was and what she was doing here. She was trying to get information out of him but he kept playing the 'I'm asking the questions here!' card. This wasn't getting them anywhere, so when Bry indicated that they were facing away from the roof access door, Casey burst out, shouting. "Federal agent! Drop your weapons now!"

The three men obviously liked their chances, being three on one, until they were all lit up with laser sights and Bry, Ellie and Anna moved far enough forward to be seen as masked paramilitary figures in full tactical gear. The Brits dropped their weapons and put their hands up quite promptly then. The one Chuck had talked to still tried to assert his authority, saying that they were British SIS and this was an international operation that had been their's from the start. They were using a shipment to trap an international arms dealer….

Casey cut him off. "Yes, we know, you were illegally moving plutonium in a picture frame as bait to catch La Ciudad."

The man's eyes widened at that, as no-one was supposed to know about either of those two things, but Casey wasn't finished.

"I wouldn't try to claim any authority here if I was you. You've smuggled plutonium across the world and into the United States in breach of all of the Nuclear Agreements, you're operating on U.S. Soil with no authority to do so, and you have kidnapped, threatened and manhandled a United States Federal Agent very inappropriately. We have video proof of that! So it would be in your best interests to shut the hell up before we do what we want to do to you!"

At that moment Sarah, who'd been searching the three of them and removing all of their weapons, phones, identification etc, kicked the one who'd 'searched' her in the family jewels hard enough to leave him curled up and whimpering on the deck, then kicked him again so that they heard his ribs cracking.

The SIS agent in charge of the Brit team shouted. "Here, you can't do that!" but he shut up when he saw her expression as she turned on him.

Sarah obviously wanted to do the same to him as she hissed. "You just fucking stood there and smirked while that bastard groped my breasts and shoved his hand in my pants to get his jollies off! You didn't do a fucking thing to stop him! I'm going to see you, and him, and that other tool go down for this!"

"We didn't know that you were a Federal Agent!"

"So it's alright for you to come into our country and kidnap and sexually assault random women as long as they're not Federal Agents is it? NO! You're going down you bastard! All of you!"

As they'd heard both Chuck say that he'd found La Ciudad and the fact that La Ciudad had made him, they hurried to secure the prisoners and get after them. Sarah went to take one of the SIS Agents' guns as she only had the small pistol that had been hidden under her dress, but Ellie stopped her, handing over the long barrelled Glock 20 that she was carrying with a few spare magazines. "Chuck and Uncle Bry carry these for a reason, I have a bad feeling about this, you might need all the fire power you can get!"

Sarah flashed her a smile as she said 'Thanks' and stuffed them with difficulty into her clutch as she and Casey ran back downstairs. The SIS agent in charge kept trying to insist that they let them go until Bry stepped up and cracked him in the head with the butt stock of his AS VAL. It was much more pleasant with the Brit unconscious. The one who'd handled Sarah complained that he was having trouble breathing, but shut up aside from moaning when Ellie also stepped up and kicked him where Sarah had, carefully as they didn't want the hassle of having him die on them.

* * *

As Malena and her men were taking him out of the Auction, Chuck swore to himself, as he'd just realised that he couldn't afford to let THEM see that he was anything but a bumbling civilian either. That would blow his cover as soon as they talked in captivity, and La Ciudad at least needed to be captured alive. That was why he started babbling like the frightened civilian he was supposed to be, slipping enough clues into his babble to lead the others to him.

In her room, La Ciudad was taunting and threatening Chuck while he kept up his frightened civilian act, admitting that his name was Bartowski and saying that he'd just been putting on an act to try and impress his date. He looked suitably dejected when he said that she'd given upon him and latched onto some rich guy as soon as she caught him out in the lie.

When she decided that he didn't have anything else to tell her, she started slowly screwing a suppressor onto a pistol with a grin and he was thinking that he'd have to expose himself for what he really was, but thumps outside the door caught her and the guards' attention. They called out to the guard who'd been posted outside the door, and when he didn't answer, they started bringing their pistols up so Chuck hissed "Get down!" into his mic.

He called "Guards at one and three o'clock from the door!" as they started firing and he kicked the chair he was tied to over. He'd broken the chair apart and freed himself within fifteen seconds, and he rose up just far enough to use the chair arm that was still tied to his arm knock out La Ciudad.

By then Sarah and Casey taken out the guards in the room using the aiming instructions he'd given them, so he called out to stop firing, crossing the room to let them in when they did so. With the official story for the Intersect team, Casey and Sarah had to be the ones to handle matters with the authorities, so Chuck got out of the way while Sarah called for FBI teams to take La Ciudad and the Brits into custody and clean up the mess, and Casey went to sell the hotel on the story that it had been a drug bust.

Bry, Ellie and Anna remained masked during the handover of the prisoners, and the FBI teams just presumed that they were SOG support that the CIA Agent had on hand for the operation, no-one said anything to disabuse them of that idea. Some of the more experienced ones on the FBI teams started whispering the names 'Bagheera', 'Raksha' and 'Rikki', as they recognised Bry, Ellie and Anna's forms, mannerisms and weapons. When Bry looked at them and shook his head without a word, they got the message and shut up.

* * *

As soon as they got back to the apartments, Casey initiated the links to Langston and Diane, as they'd been waiting to hear the outcome of the mission. Langston and Diane were more outraged about how Sarah had been handled than the other aspects of what the Brits had done, but it was the other aspects that were more important in the bigger scheme of things, so they dragged the DNI out of bed and showed him the video evidence of the Brits admitting to illegally smuggling nuclear material into the United States and running an operation on U.S. Soil without clearing it with U.S. authorities. They also showed the video of how they'd been mistreating a United States Federal Agent and the admission that the illegal nuclear material was currently located in the British Consulate-General in Los Angeles.

The DNI in turn dragged the President out of bed and had Sarah and Casey run through the videos and admissions with him as well. The President dropped off the link to call the British Prime Minister and tear him a new one, leaving the DNI to wind things up. As he was thanking Sarah and Casey for their efforts, the DNI said. "The only thing that could have made this operation any more successful would have been if you managed to capture La Ciudad..."

Sarah took a risk and cut him off. "I'm sorry, didn't we mention that Sir? Our asset identified La Ciudad, at considerable risk to himself as we were tied up with the SIS agents at the time, and we captured her as well."

"Her, don't you mean him?"

"No Sir, it's her, La Ciudad is a woman, that may be why no-one's ever identified her before, as they've all been looking for a man."

The DNI grinned at that. "Well I believe that we must thank you for truly going above and beyond on this operation Agent Walker and Major Casey."

She thought she'd take advantage of his good mood to make another dig. "Thank you Sir, but we couldn't have done any of this without the asset, he was the one who flagged the SIS agents, identified how the nuclear material had been smuggled and identified La Ciudad as well."

The DNI nodded. "Yes, you are correct, we have to do something to properly express our gratitude to that young man."

With that he dropped off the link, Diane gave Sarah a look to say that she was playing with fire, but she was glad that she'd got that in with the DNI, then they wound up the video-conference and disconnected the links.

* * *

Chuck was ready for bed but sitting at the desk working on something when she walked in. Sarah kissed him briefly, but pulled back and said that she wanted to have a long shower to wash the feel of that other bastard off of her before they did anything, so she grabbed her pyjamas and headed for the bathroom.

The next day, Sarah and Casey were advised that they would be overseeing the handover of the nuclear material to the United States Army at the British Consulate-General that afternoon. While they were there, the Consul-General would also be making a formal apology to Sarah on behalf of the British Government for her treatment at the hands of their Agents. She got a small degree of satisfaction from seeing those arrogant politicians having to kowtow to the people who had exposed their activities, but wished that Chuck could have gotten his fair share of the glory.

Chuck did get something out of this, as they used the DNI's comments to action Sarah's request to remove the internal surveillance from the Bartowski apartment, so he, Sarah and Ellie could do what they wanted without perverts in Washington watching them. There were other things in play for Chuck, but they'd take longer to be actioned. One thing's for sure, that was one hell of a first mission for the team, it would be a hard one to top but they'd certainly put themselves on the map with that one.

Identify the illegal smuggling of nuclear material for making a bomb, locate said nuclear material and force it's surrender to the proper authorities, check. Prove that foreign operatives are operating illegally on U.S. Soil, force them to identify themselves and organise their expulsion and subsequent banning from U.S. Soil, check. Identify and capture one of, if not the, most elusive illegal arms dealers in the world, check. Yeah, it wasn't a bad first mission.

 **A/N: While trying to confirm Jill's nasty room mate from The Ex's name, I came across a disturbing reference to an incident in 2014, so that gave me a fitting surname for Shari.**


	5. Red's In The Hood

**Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed, this isn't the real world, and it's not a Disney Princess story.**

A few weeks later, the Ellie and the team were having a games night like they used to, and everyone was having a good time, but they suddenly felt like they were being watched, well everyone but Jeff as he rarely did field work. Chuck casually draped his arm over the end of the couch and used the integrated keyboard down there to bring up the external surveillance feeds on the flat screen on the wall where it couldn't be seen from outside.

He flicked through the feeds until he spotted the figure in the shadows, covered in black from head to toe. After watching it for a moment he mused. "Why is she pretending to be a man?" That caught Sarah and Casey's attention. "What?"

"From the shape and the way she moves it's obviously a woman, but she's strapped her breasts tightly and is consciously trying to move like a man to try and mask that."

Sarah was staring at the figure, Chuck was right, in fact… "I think I know who it is. If I'm right, she's a friend that I've worked with before, she was my partner for two years on the CAT Squad. I'll go out and talk to her, see what she's after. She might just need a friend, she's had a rough life, and it's only gotten worse since she joined this life."

Chuck wasn't happy with that idea. "It's too dangerous, we can use the external defences to tranq her and find out what she wants when she comes to."

"No Chuck, she'll never trust me again it you do that, let me talk to her alone at first, Please? If it's anything official I'll bring you guys in then."

He reluctantly agreed to that, and she quietly asked Casey if she could use his apartment? At his response of. "Of course!", she slipped out the door.

She walked to the corner of the building and said. "Come out Red, I know you're there!"

The black clad figure suddenly appeared beside her. "There's no way you knew it was me Blondie!"

"And yet I call your name and here you are! What are you doing here Red? Is it just a friendly visit or is this work?"

"Where's the love Blondie? I come here to brighten up you dull existence and you interrogate me?"

"Firstly, my existence here isn't dull, I'm happier than I can ever remember being. I just had a Consul-General forced to make a formal apology to me and you know how much I like pissing off politicians and bureaucrats, but for all of that I've had a rough month, so give me a straight answer for fuck's sake! Are you here as a friend, or is it for work?"

"Why does everything have to be black or white? Why can't…."

"Goodbye Carina, don't let the door hit you in the arse." With that she turned and headed for the door to go back inside but Carina stopped her.

"Sarah, stop! OK. Yes, there's a mission involved, but I REALLY need my friend at the moment, I think I'm coming apart at the seams!"

Sarah nodded, and led her over to Casey's apartment, letting them in.

Carina looked around and asked. "Do you live here? It doesn't look like you."

Sarah shook her head as she pointed towards Casa Bartowski. "No, I live over there, this is John Casey's apartment."

"What's going on with that? What are you doing, partnered with the NSA's Lethal Weapon?"

Sarah shook her head again. "That's classified, You know that I can only tell you if and when you're cleared to hear it. Anyway, we're not here to talk about that, we're here to talk about you, what's making you come apart at the seams?"

They talked for hours, cleaned out all the alcohol, tissues and paper napkins in the apartment, he didn't have much toilet paper left either as they used that as make do tissues at the end. When Carina passed out, Sarah texted Casey to come over, and she got him to carry Carina upstairs to put her to bed in the spare room before she staggered across to their apartment.

* * *

When they got up in the morning, both Sarah and Carina were feeling decidedly second hand. After Sarah had had a shower and some coffee and was feeling almost human, she went across to Casey's with Chuck to see how Carina came up after the previous night.

Walking in to find Carina sitting at the kitchen table wearing one of Casey's T-shirts and little else, Sarah started to tear into Casey. "You fucking pig! She wasn't in any state to agree to anything last night and you took advantage of her!" but Carina cut her off.

"Sarah, stop! He didn't do anything of the sort! I threw up all over myself and the bed and he got me cleaned up, gave me this to wear and put me to bed in his bed, aside from when he was washing the vomit off me he didn't do anything more than hold me!"

"Oh. Sorry John, I guess I jumped to conclusions."

Chuck came forward, amused by the drama, but when he saw Carina, Sarah could tell he was being hit with a massive Intersect flash. When the flash finished, she watched shock, then delight, then horror cross over his face, and he went white as he looked at Casey.

Sarah had never heard him sound as stilted as he did when he said. "Agent Miller, do you have business clothes in your car?"

When she nodded he asked. "Can you go get them and get ready for a secure video link in our apartment in fifteen minutes please?"

Carina looked at Sarah and when she nodded, though obviously confused, she headed out to the car to get her clothes. Casey said. "I better go get ready" but stopped, confused and angry when Chuck just said. "No Major Casey, you won't be part of this briefing." and walked out.

Determined to find out why he was being excluded, Casey jumped onto the monitors to hear what was said when Walker caught Bartowski outside. "Chuck, what the hell's going on? Why did you say that to Casey?"

Chuck looked out at where Carina was getting a bag out of her car, and then back at Sarah. "Do you remember what Mom said about the one we've been looking for?"

"Yeah, but….."

"She's the one!"

Sarah looked confused. "What?" and then it clicked. "NO?"

Chuck nodded, and now Casey was really confused, because she also went through the same cycle of shocked, then delighted, then horrified as she looked over at his apartment.

When Carina came up they said that they'd see her in fifteen minutes and headed into their apartment to get ready themselves, but Chuck made a phone call first.

* * *

When Carina turned up in a respectable skirt suit, she was even more confused as they led her into their bedroom and closed the door.

Diane was waiting when they initiated the connection, as Chuck had told her what he'd be doing and when. She was surprised to see Carina there, so she started with. "Mr Bartowski, what…."

Chuck cut her off. "Auntie Di, we found her!"

Much like Sarah, she looked confused. "What?" and then it clicked. "NO!" and hope and disbelief and elation were crossing over her face.

By now Carina was totally confused and pissed off. "Can someone tell me why I was brought into someone's bedroom for a secure video link please?"

Chuck looked at the screen, but Auntie Di was in no state to talk, so he started the story.

"Agent Miller, Carina, both of your birth parents are part of the United States' Intelligence Community. When your mother discovered that she was pregnant, she tried to contact your father, who was on a long term deep cover assignment, but the agency he worked for told her that he'd been killed. She fell apart and ended up giving you up for adoption when you were born because she didn't believe that she or her world were suitable for children."

"About ten months later, your father returned, and she discovered that the bureaucrats had just decided that their protocols and the mission, which was ultimately a waste of time and accomplished nothing, were too important to consider passing on any information to him or telling your mother that he was expected to be back within a year and a half, so they just told her that he was dead."

"Your parents tried to locate you then, but the family who adopted you had been killed in a car crash. There had been no mention made of you, so they had to presume that you had been killed as well. Losing you like that was too much and they couldn't stay together after that. That was the way it continued until a few years ago, when we were looking through DEA records and found your birth certificate in a DEA deep cover operative's file."

"We couldn't find anything about your current identity in the DEA's systems and I think that they may have noticed our searches and deliberately buried your records after that, because you'd pop up when you finished one deep cover assignment, then immediately disappear into another one, and they were usually long term assignments so by the time we'd note that your name had come up, you would have disappeared again."

"I looked into your background and found out that you'd gone into the foster care system after the car accident and escalating physical and sexual abuse led to you running away when you were twelve. You were fairly successful as a minor criminal, generally confidence games, pickpocketing, break and enter and safe cracking. You used your beauty and wit to disarm people and get access to what you wanted."

"There were several incidents where you were involved in violence, but they were mostly attributed to your defending yourself, including that final incident when you were sixteen and killed seven members of the local football team elsewhere in a house where there was a party going on. You were captured by the authorities at that point and the DEA used that incident to force you to accept an offer to work for them, or go to the worse hell hole in South America they could find. Then I walked into Casey's this morning and saw the face I had been looking for, so here we are."

Carina looked even more confused than before. "How. How could you find that out about any of that? No, don't bother, I think a better question is, why are we talking to General Beckman of the NSA about this?"

Chuck looked at the screen and she spoke up quietly. "Because I'm your birth mother Honey."

Carina collapsed into the chair behind her. "What? You're my mother? You? I don't know what game you're trying to pull but I don't believe you!"

Diane burst into tears at that and Chuck went to the keyboard to bring up Carina's core DEA file, extracting and displaying the birth certificate that was in it. Seeing her real birthday and birth place there made her wonder whether this WAS real. That document certainly had Diane Mary Beckman listed as the mother and Bryan Mills as the father. The line she stared at though was her name, Brianna Mary Beckman, this was the first time she'd ever seen her real name.

Carina started as she realised that as much as she didn't want to, she DID accept that this woman was her mother, and this WAS her birth certificate. Then she saw red, because this meant that those bastards in the DEA had known for years who she was for years, shit, that was probably the reason they forced her to join, to use her to blackmail her mother with.

At that, Carina started crying as well and Sarah put her arms around her.

* * *

Chuck saw the motion sensor indicators flashing and had a look out the window. Seeing Uncle Bry he went to let him in, sitting him down in the living room to explain why he told him that he had to come over. At first Bry refused to accept it, but the more Chuck explained, the more hopeful he became.

Eventually, he hesitantly followed Chuck down the hall to the bedroom. Sarah had been listening to them, and turned Carina's chair to face the door as they were about to reach it, whispering in her ear. "Carina, this is your father, he's been Uncle Bry to me and Charlie just about all of our lives."

Hearing that from the one person she trusted in the world, Carina stood and took a step forward, and before she knew it she was in his arms.

While they were holding each other and crying, Sarah slipped around them and went to Ellie's bedroom, because there was another one of these secure video link setups there. She initiated a link to Director Graham, and started filling him in on the real identity of Special Agent Carina Miller, and what she'd been put through since 1994 when she was coerced into joining the DEA at sixteen.

Chuck came in partway through this and held her hand as she talked. Sarah broke down a few times as she was repeating what Carina had been forced to endure over that time. When she finished, Sarah wiped her eyes and asked Uncle Lang whether he believed that they'd managed to build up enough credit with the DNI to get him to force the DEA to transfer Agent Miller to the CIA and from there have her assigned to the Intersect team.

He looked at the both of them for a moment and then asked if they were prepared to use whatever the mileage the team had to pull this off? He smiled when they said "YES!" in unison, and then smiled even more broadly when he said that he thought that they might be able to do this without the DNI's assistance.

Langston quickly went over the parameters of the mission that Carina was here for and told them that the DEA Administrator was so desperate to get his hands on the Nadan-I-Noor diamond that he was offering all sorts of deals to get it. Langston was pretty sure that he could spin the Administrator a story that would hook him.

The point was, the DNI had been quite vocal in his praise of what they, and in particular Agent Walker, had pulled off with the Brits, and capturing La Ciudad as well. That would make it easy to spin a story about how, now that Walker was the darling of the DNI, she was being a total prima donna and demanding everything under the sun. So, when her friend Miller turned up, Walker suddenly decided that she wanted her old partner back, and that demand included Miller being CIA.

It was fairly certain that, if he tossed that bait out, the Administrator would offer to transfer Carina to the CIA in return for a commitment that he'd get the Nadan-I-Noor. Sarah was looking confused, well they both were really. "Wouldn't he insist on getting the diamond first? And once he had it, what would stop him reneging on the deal to transfer Carina?"

"Ah, there's the beauty of having to pander to the darling of the DNI, because you've turned into such a demanding little bitch at the moment that there's a good chance that you could jeopardise the mission by throwing tantrums if you don't have what you want going in. That means that I'll need Miller as CIA at the start of this mission, and in return I'll give him my solemn promise that he'll get the diamond."

"But then it will get around that you can't be trusted when he doesn't get the diamond."

"Oh, he'll get the diamond alright, but someone, probably that bitch Beckman, will have made sure that the DNI, the Secretary of State and the President all knew that the diamond was the rightful property of the Indian government. You see it was stolen in the early parts of the twentieth century and has been passed around between the warlords since then. So, even though it will be delivered to the DEA under the usual practice of them handling whatever was captured from drug operations, it will be officially recovered from them to be returned to its rightful owners with all due pomp and ceremony and the Administrator won't be able to do a thing about it."

Sarah couldn't speak, so Chuck asked. "Do you really think that this will work Uncle Lang?"

Langston nodded. "Yes, he's desperate to get that diamond, and he's made a few comments about this being all she's good for any more. He'll look at this as trading a burnt out agent who's getting long in the tooth for something he really wants, I'm sure he'll jump at the chance. Anyway, we'll know soon enough, I'm going to call him now, with any luck I'll be announcing that she's been added to the CIA component of the team by the time we have the briefing in an hour or so's time." With that he cut the link.

* * *

Sarah and Chuck smiled at each other, then Chuck's face dropped. "Shit! Casey! I have to explain this to him before the briefing."

She shook her head. "I think WE better explain it to him. You were brutal, the way that you cut him off at the knees, so I'm not sure he'd be interested in listening to anything you say at the moment."

Chuck nodded ruefully, and with that they grabbed a few white noise generators and bug killers and headed for Casey's apartment to try and straighten this out.

Casey's face when he opened the door confirmed that Sarah was right, but she held up a hand to stop him saying anything until they'd swept the room and then set up the white noise generators and bug killers. Then Chuck apologised for his behaviour earlier and repeated most of what he'd said to Carina.

At the end of it, Casey looked stunned. Once he'd confirmed that they were both serious and certain about this, his face dropped. "Oh fuck, I've been sleeping with General Beckman and Bagheera's daughter? I'm so screwed!"

Chuck nodded ruefully. "That was why I gave you that look at the end, thinking about what their reactions will be to the well known fact that you've known their daughter that way."

Sarah piped up. "More often than most actually, Carina's always been a one and done girl, you're one of the very few that she ever went back to. I guess that that could have been due to the side of you who looked after her last night, thank you for that by the way."

She grinned wickedly then. "At least it's well known that you were the one who was tied down and forced to do things, not her."

Chuck burst out laughing at that, which earned him a glare from Casey.

Chuck suddenly stopped laughing, but it wasn't because of Casey. "Has Uncle Bry told her about her sister yet?"

That got a "Her WHAT?" from Sarah and Casey.

"Uncle Bry got married and they had a daughter in ninety one, so Carina has a half sister."

Sarah stared at him. "Do we want to know who Uncle Bry's wife is?"

"Uncle Bry's EX-wife wasn't part of this world, she divorced him when Kim was twelve because he was away all the time on missions, and she got remarried so soon after that that she must have been seeing the guy she married while he was away."

* * *

Stewing over things wasn't going to fix anything though, so they all went over to the Bartowski apartment to have a family breakfast and get ready for the briefing that was coming up in a bit over half an hour.

Chuck pulled Bry aside to ask whether he'd told Carina about Kim and Bry nodded. Chuck tensed when Bry looked over at Casey, preparing to defend him, but Bry shook his head, saying that Carina had told him enough about Casey to accept that he'd been good to her, Bry snorted then. "I'm not so sure he'll be safe from her mother though."

With food and coffee, everyone was settled down by the time the briefing started. It was just Sarah and Casey, as the Intersect team's two agents, at first. Langston put on a good act of being pissed off when Sarah asked what had happened about her request. "Yes, Walker, Miller is in the process of being transferred to the CIA and she will be assigned to your team. As this was all at your insistence, I will be holding you responsible for any problems caused by Miller's behaviour and improvisations on missions. Keep your pet under control or else!"

They'd forgotten that Casey didn't know anything about this, but his reaction played out perfectly for the watchers they were sure they had. "What? What the hell's going on Sir? Since when is Miller joining the team, and what do we need another agent for?"

"Take it up with your partner Major Casey, after Miller turned up last night and they had their heart to heart she dragged me out of bed to demand that I get Miller transferred into the CIA and made her partner again. As Walker is part of this team, the only way to make her Walker's partner was to add her to the team too. Luckily Miller's performance to date meant that I didn't have to promise too much to get her from the DEA, though I dare say it cost me more than she's worth."

He glared at Sarah and went on. "Get your new partner and the team's analyst in here Walker, you've got a mission to do!"

Casey piped up again. "Analyst, Sir? The team doesn't have an analyst."

"It does now, it appears that Agent Walker had a word in someone's ear and Mister Bartowski is now an NSA field analyst, attached to the team."

Sarah didn't bother hiding her triumphant smile as she went to get Carina and Chuck, if she was going to be billed as a prima donna she may as well act the part.

It occurred to her that neither Carina or Chuck knew about the developments, hell, she hadn't known about Chuck's, so this would be interesting.

When they came back in, Langston gave a brief spiel about the changes to the team, then barked at them that they could discuss this in their own time, they were here to be briefed on their mission!

* * *

He launched into the mission briefing with that, telling them that they were to assist Carina in acquiring a diamond from a drug transporter, Peyman Alahi's compound in Malibu. Alahi was holding onto a significant diamond, the Nadan-I-Noor, for terrorists as it was going to be used to purchase missiles, so the mission was to get that diamond off him to stop those missile purchases being made.

Chuck, Anna and Jeff dug out what information they could about Alahi's compound and security forces. Their way into the compound was already known, as Alahi had a perpetual pool party going so that he could ogle as many women as possible in next to nothing. Carina had a name through the DEA that they could use to get them in.

They needed Chuck inside to provide the necessary intel, but given the nature of Alahi and the other men there, the only viable way to get him in was as Carina's brother. Casey would be on-site as their driver, but he wouldn't be inside. Once again, Bry, Ellie and Anna would be tactical support, and Jeff would provide technical support from the van. The vehicle WAS a van, but it was a rather different one with off road capabilities that they used for this mission, as the closest approach to Alahi's compound was via the beach below it. They'd park the van down there and the tactical support would enter via the path from the beach when they said they were going in.

Carina was worried that they didn't have the type of people they needed to pull this off, and she didn't appreciate it when Sarah burst out laughing. That was when Sarah realised that she hadn't been told who everyone was.

"Sorry Red, but you HAVE heard of these people, just not by these names. Your father is better known as Bagheera..." She gave a little laugh when Carina's eyes widened. "Yeah, Ellie is Raksha, and a SEAL, and Anna is Rikki."

She smirked when Carina slowly turned to look at Chuck. "Who's your boyfriend then?"

"I would have thought that that was obvious, Chuck's Mowgli, he's a SEAL too."

She hesitated. "While we're filling you in on the family, Chuck and Ellie's mother is Frost, Auntie Mary to me. Director Graham is Uncle Lang, Roan Montgomery is Uncle Roan and my mother is just down in San Diego."

"What, she's not a legendary spy too?"

Chuck piped up. "Legendary yes, spy no, Auntie Em was the best analyst the CIA ever had, Uncle Jack is probably the next best."

Carina shot a look at Sarah at that. "No, not my father, he was just a bent agent with delusions of grandeur, Uncle Jack is the Deputy Director of CIA for Analysis, he's also my, Chuck and Ellie's godfather, your mother is our godmother by the way."

It looked as though Carina's head was about to explode, so Sarah suggested that they would have plenty of time to talk about that later, but for now they had a mission to complete.

* * *

The next day, it was a simple thing to get into Alahi's compound, Casey drove them up in the Towncar, Carina gave the name she was told to use and they were waved on in. Sarah and Carina had bikinis on under their dresses and Chuck was wearing board shorts under his summer suit in case they were expected to get into the swing of things at the pool party, but they had no trouble slipping away after they'd wandered around for a bit.

Jeff (well, Jeff and Anna initially, then Jeff), was controlling the surveillance and security systems so that they didn't show up on the security monitors as they slipped around to the part of the mansion where they expected the diamond to be. When he got them into the building, they found the diamond more easily than they expected, as it was out on display in Alahi's treasure room.

It didn't take long for Jeff to unlock the room, but they knew that there was probably a silent alarm so they were trying to find the security controls around the diamond when they heard a round being chambered in a pistol behind them. Sarah and Carina were kicking themselves as they were supposed to be keeping a lookout while Chuck checked the security controls in the room.

Sarah's stomach churned when she turned to see Alahi standing there, as the tiny swimmers he was wearing left absolutely nothing to the imagination, though he wasn't exactly uncovered, as he had a thick pelt covering his entire body. The worst part of it was that the disgusting little troll actually thought he was appealing and tried to charm them, so she had to force the gorge down as she put on her ditzy valley girl act to play up to him.

Even though it was only a minor departure from the plan, she could have killed Carina when she introduced them as sisters, and Chuck as their brother, as it meant that Alahi thought that he was going to get lucky, at least he sent the guards away though. They did manage to get a number of details about the security controls out of him as he was checking them out and handling them.

Unfortunately, Sarah was obviously the one who'd caught Alahi's eye, so she was the one who'd need to distract him. She had to force herself not to react to the way he was groping her and leering at her, and she couldn't look at Chuck, as she would have lost it if she saw his reaction to this, so she forced the gorge down and asked Alahi about the pretty paintings outside. Of course he jumped at the chance to get her alone.

Chuck turned his attention back to the Nadan-I-Noor, and flashed on the security features, distractedly telling Carina that the stone was protected by 20,000 volts of electricity. He was worried about Sarah with Alahi and at first ignored Carina when she asked how to get around that, but knew that failing here would put Sarah in more danger, so he suggested something like compressed air to blow it off the pedestal, seeing fire extinguisher on the wall, he waved to that and said 'Perhaps that?'

Before he could stop her, she grabbed the fire extinguisher and shot a blast of CO2 at the diamond to send it flying, Chuck caught it in mid-air as the alarms went off, the door started coming down and gas was released into the room. Carina kicked over a pedestal to block the door, destroying what was probably a priceless bust in the process, saying "Come on!" as she did a picture perfect little league slide under the door, he stuffed the diamond into his pocket and followed her, though he just cleared the door as he was bigger.

Out in the hall, he saw that Sarah had taken out Alahi and the guards who'd come running at the alarm, and she grabbed his hand to drag him to his feet and run. Chuck pulled back though, saying that they needed to take Alahi for two reasons, first to stop him coming after them, and second to improve their position, as delivering Alahi as well as the diamond would give them extra mileage.

As he was bending over to pick up Alahi in a fireman's carry, he saw their feet and spat out. "Shoes! You can't run in sand in those things, get rid of them!"

Carina grumbled. "Do you know what these cost?" but was kicking them off as quickly as Sarah was her's as she saw the sense of it. She only just heard him muttering something about burning his suit after the troll had rubbed all over it.

They took off in the opposite direction to the pool party and ran down the path to the beach, with Sarah calling Casey to get out of there. Of course, the guards had no trouble working out where they were going and headed after them, but Bry, Ellie and Anna were covering the retreat and put them down quickly.

As they reached the van, Jeff called to Bry and the others to disengage. Chuck grabbed an AS VAL from the van and was covering Bry, Ellie and Anna as they ran for it. Watching him, Carina had to concede that he was a lot more than she'd thought he was, and he looked damned hot standing up there providing covering fire like that too.

When the others were in the van, Bry yanked Jeff out of the driver's seat and took over. Carina looked a question at that and Anna grinned at her. "Remind me to tell you about the time we almost got caught because Jeff got the van bogged!"

Jeff retorted. "Hey, it was only that one time!" but Bry looked back with a grin. "One's enough!"

The rendezvoused with Casey up on the road and Sarah, Carina and Chuck transferred to the Towncar, so they could throw off the pursuit if Alahi's men came after them.

* * *

On the way back in the Towncar, Chuck ran over the story to give to cover Alahi's capture. He'd surprised them when they were trying to get the diamond and they decided that it wasn't safe to leave him behind, and on top of that his handling payments for terrorist arms purchases qualified him for Gitmo, so there should be nothing to stop them from extracting whatever he knew there.

Carina came out and asked the obvious question, why was he feeding all these points to Sarah, why wasn't he presenting them himself? Sarah and Chuck looked at each other and then Sarah turned to Carina. "We can't discuss that until you've been transferred to the CIA and officially added into the team with your clearances upgraded. The short answer is that officially, Chuck is barely an analyst and having him address these issues would raise too many questions from people who we don't want looking too closely at us."

She could see that that answer didn't go down too well, but she just had to ask Carina to trust her for now and promise that she'd tell her when they could do so safely.

They went back to the HST office and pulled the van into the loading dock. Casey dragged the bound and hooded Alahi down into the Intersect base to put him in a cell until he could be picked up for return to Washington. He also locked up the Nadan-I-Noor, as it would go back with Alahi. The sight of Alahi's scrawny but extraordinarily hairy almost naked body was turning their stomachs, so Casey went to dig up a something to cover him.

* * *

The others didn't go straight downstairs. Carina looked around the office and then looked accusingly at Sarah. Sarah chuckled. "Didn't we mention this? This is our cover business, don't complain, what Casey and I were stuck with before this was set up were minimum wage retail and food service jobs, and we were looking for someone to shoot five minutes after we walked in the door. I've been running the office here while the others go out on jobs, but that might be a better job for you. We'll have to talk about cars and where you're going to live too."

When she saw Carina winding up to blow, she grabbed her by the arm and dragged her outside.

"Carina, if you're going to be on this team, this is the life we lead. It isn't five star hotels, Ferraris and flying off to San Tropez for a tan all the time. It ALSO isn't having to screw every pig who is part of a drug cartel to get information which turns out to be useless half the time, getting beaten and almost killed at least once a month and being treated as a disposable piece of shit by the people you work for."

"If you don't want this life, fine, we'll tell Director Graham that you've changed your mind and you can go back to what you were doing, or you can do the same things for the CIA. If you stay here you'll work in this cover business, share the apartment with Casey and drive a car like we drive, but you won't have to do any of that shit that was making you come apart at the seams. If you go back to that, you can tell your mother why you chose that life over this, because I'm not doing that for you. So, what is it, will you join us or do I call Director Graham to tell him you're going back?"

Carina waved at the HST office. "You can't tell me that you're happy doing this?"

"Actually, I am, and so is Casey. Yes, we have to maintain a low key image and we have limited opportunities to live the high life outside of missions. When we want a nice night out we have to slip away and change clothes and cars at the warehouse, but we usually manage that every week or two. We've only managed to have one weekend away in the time we've been here because we got called away on one of Chuck's other operations on the other weekend we had planned. But in the last month we've had two missions that have each achieved more than most agents do in their entire careers. This team is important, and if you stay you'll be part of important things, but THIS is part of it and our cover can't slip, so if you can't handle that tell me now, I'll make a call and get you out of here.

"I. I can't go back to that. I'll kill myself if I do."

"So you'll stay?"

Carina nodded with tears in her eyes.

Sarah hugged her and then led her back inside.

When they came in, Chuck looked at Sarah and she nodded, getting that smile that warmed her soul.

He pointed down and she nodded again with a smile and led Carina to the entrance to the Intersect base.

When they got down there, Carina couldn't believe her eyes. It was hard enough to believe that THIS was underneath the business that they had upstairs, but more to the point, she hadn't seen a base like this before. The equipment in this base was way beyond what any operation she'd ever been on before had had, and she'd worked on some high profile projects, hell, the CAT Squad was one of the top teams a few years ago and they hadn't rated anything close to this, so this team MUST be special. She was starting to see what Sarah was getting at.

After she'd looked around the equipment in the operations centre, Sarah gave her a quick tour of the rest of the base. Carina loved the gym, as she hadn't had a chance for a good workout with a worthwhile opponent in years, since the CATs broke up actually. Sarah grinned when she brought that up. "You won't have a problem with that here, Chuck, Ellie, Anna and your father are all good, and you know what Casey's like. Shit, did anyone mention that? Uncle Bry lives here in L.A. so you'll have plenty of chances to see him."

The tour cut off when Casey called to say that the Director and the General were ready for the briefing.

Casey brought up the links as soon as they got there. Langston and Diane were surprised when Sarah reported that they'd captured Alahi and the reasoning behind it. Carina didn't miss the little smile that her mother flashed Chuck's way before she wiped the expression off her face though, and with that she got what Sarah was trying to tell her. Even on the agencies' secure communications they were all playing their roles so that the others who were monitoring their communications didn't find out the truth. 'Curiouser and curiouser!' cried Alice.

When the reasoning had been explained, Diane advised them that they currently had a C-37 inbound as that diamond was a priority. They'd just have to amend the orders to collect Alahi as well and get him routed through to Gitmo. Langston also advised that Carina's CIA paperwork and credentials were coming on the plane, so she'd have to go with them to the airport to sign all of her paperwork for it to be processed.

* * *

When the link was disconnected, Casey looked at the two women and said that they might want to go and get changed into something more businesslike to meet whoever was coming on the plane.

Carina obviously wanted to say something as they got out of the car, but Sarah said. "Why don't you come over for a coffee after you've gotten changed, we can talk before we go back." Carina bit off her response to that and went to have a shower.

When she went over to the Bartowski apartment, Sarah sat her down and asked. "OK, what do you want to know?"

"Well for a start, what's with all the secrecy? Why can't you tell me anything about your boyfriend, the 'analyst'?"

"At this point, Chuck is officially just my 'cover' boyfriend as I'm his handler. Officially, I'm living with him on the basis of a twenty four seven protective detail as he was a highly important asset who was dragged into this as a civilian about two months ago."

"Why is he so important and why can't anyone know that he's actually a very capable agent?"

"You'll have to wait until your paperwork is finished for why he's important, for the other, as far as the government knows he was just an ordinary civilian two months ago. Carina, we need then to keep thinking that! If you care for me at all you'll help us keep up that act!"

"Like my mother and Director Graham do?"

"Yes!"

Carina looked at her for about a minute. "The second my paperwork is cleared you're telling me everything!"

Sarah slumped in relief. "Yes, I promise!"

"OK, I agreed on the classified part, and will keep this to where you tell me it's safe, but what's the story with you two? You didn't just meet him two months ago!"

Sarah shook her head with a smile. "No, do you remember me talking about my best friend when I was a little girl?"

"It was a boy, Jamie? No, Charlie!"

Sarah nodded. "Chuck is Charlie!"

"You get sent out here to be the handler for your childhood sweetheart? You've been watching too many lifetime shows!"

"No, that's exactly what happened. At first I thought I was coming to take down one of Larkin's accomplices…."

"What do you mean, accomplices?"

"Larkin broke into a highly sensitive facility and stole what might be the most sensitive information the government had, Casey killed him and stopped him getting away, but he sent it to Chuck before he died."

"Why would he send something like that to Chuck?"

"The only thing we can think of is that he wanted to finish the job of destroying him. He was Chuck's room mate and so-called friend at Stanford, but he framed Chuck for cheating and got him thrown out of Stanford just before they graduated. He also screwed his girlfriend and stole her away from him. He must have heard that Chuck hadn't been completely destroyed and decided to finish the job."

"OK, I'm guessing that there's a lot more to that story, but how does the government NOT know that your 'civilian' is Mowgli for fuck's sake? Everyone in the business knows about Mowgli!"

"Yes, and they know about Bagheera and Raksha too, but you didn't recognise your father had anything to do with Bagheera until I told you, did you?"

"No, but there has to be military, CIA and other records for them!"

"Of course there are, they're just not in the name of Bartowski, which wasn't their original name anyway."

Carina wanted to follow this through, but just then they got a text from Casey to say that the C-37 was inbound and they had to get the troll and the diamond to the airport. They drove over to the car warehouse, where Carina recognised the off road van and the Towncar.

She was a little surprised when they transferred into a couple of more 'normal' black SUVs for this trip, but thinking about the facade that they were keeping up, it made sense. Turning up in a couple of 'government' black SUVs with four support personnel in tactical gear is what the authorities would expect to see.

The handover went off without a hitch, though Carina thought that she might have RSI from the number of forms that she had to sign for the senior CIA representative who was waiting to take them back. They watched the plane take off and then went back to the car warehouse to drop off the SUVs.

* * *

While they were there, Sarah steered Carina away from the Ferraris that she was drooling over (getting an accusing look as she muttered something about 'What were you saying about Ferraris?') and took her to the area where the 'acceptable' cars were. Of course Carina wasn't at all impressed with any of the options there, especially after what she'd just been pulled away from, but she ended up taking the ninety eight Eagle Talon TSi AWD with Evo Six mechanicals as the most stylish of the boring bunch. Sarah could see Chuck grinning at them and knew what he was thinking, that Carina's opinion of that 'stupid car' that she had to drive would change once she tried it with the performance unlocked, and she smirked in agreement.

Chuck suggested that Sarah take Carina back to the apartment and catch up, because they'd be tied up here for a while as they worked through at least some of the service jobs for today. Seeing the way that Sarah was glowing when she kissed Chuck goodbye made Carina shake her head, what world was she in that the Enforcer was grinning like a schoolgirl and GLOWING? Shit!

A few days later, they were officially notified that Carina was part of the team, as CIA Agent Carina Miller, and her clearances had been upgraded so she could be read into the purpose of the team and what Chuck was. They were also told that the Nadan-I-Noor had been found to have been stolen from India, so it had been returned to the Indian Government in a formal ceremony. This had given the American government a notable political advantage, so they were formally commended for that as well.

Needless to say, Carina had a hard time believing what she was told about Chuck and the Intersect, but she eventually got her head around it, and it explained some of the things that she'd seen.

* * *

Sharing an apartment with Casey wasn't a problem, God knows Carina had shared a bed with him often enough, but she smirked as she remembered his one house rule when she moved in, NO HANDCUFFS!

She'd have to find a way to get back at Chuck and Sarah for the way they'd laughed at how excited she'd gotten when they showed her just what that stupid car she was driving could do though. It didn't look like it had anything like that sort of performance! She realised that that was the whole point but still, she didn't appreciate being laughed at like that at all!

This life was generally boring though, running the Hunter Security and Technology office while the others handled service calls wasn't exactly challenging, and in the last couple of months, the Intersect team hadn't had one serious mission.

The only saving grace on that front was those 'other' missions that came via Chuck and her father. There was excitement aplenty on THOSE missions and she had to admit that it felt pretty good to see the respect she was being given, just because she'd been accepted as part of THAT group. In keeping with the Jungle Book code names, Casey had become Baloo, Sarah became Shanti, and she became Pappu, the cat in that world.

It was hard for her to admit that she had trouble keeping up with them in that world, but Sarah was the only one who seemed able to keep up with Chuck, her man was hell on wheels when he was in his element. She was a little mollified to see that Casey was stretched as much as she was, but she smiled ruefully to herself, as that was what made it all the more rewarding. They'd found something where they really had to work to make the grade, and neither of them had faced a challenge like that in ages.

That smile was wiped off her face when she remembered the time she'd talked Director Graham into letting her do a mission outside of the team because she wasn't being properly utilised in this environment. It had been pretty much the same type of mission as she was used to and she'd had to force herself to look excited as the pig was dragging her off to his hotel room.

When he started she fell apart, but that wasn't going to stop him having his fun. That was when the team broke in and took the guy down. She hadn't known that they were shadowing her, she hadn't even realised that they'd bugged her. She knew that the Ice Queen was the best, but she had to rethink her impressions of Chuck and Casey, considering that it only took her being a little distracted for them to be able to play her like that.

At least the mission hadn't really been anything important (another similarity to her previous missions), and Chuck and Casey had scared the guy so much that he gave up the information anyway.

It did tell her one thing though, the self loathing that she felt in the wake of that mission wiped out the improvements she'd managed to make to her self image since she joined Sarah and the others, after that she KNEW that she couldn't go back to that world.

 **A/N: Come on, you KNEW that Carina was the child that Diane lost, didn't you? I** **gave you plenty of clues** **;^)**


	6. For Love Of Family

**Thanks Nancy, maybe I did too good a job of not making my clues too obvious, sorry. I had thought that when one person saw straight through it, everyone would. Just to prove that it was always meant to be Carina though, I used the birth month of the actress who played her for Diane's baby ;^)**

 **It's been pointed out that I haven't explained other aspects too well, either, so I'll try to do something about that.**

 **NB: If anyone wants a face for 'Uncle Jack', I'm picturing the one who played the best Jack Ryan IMO, Harrison Ford. Uncle Bry is, of course, Liam Neeson and Kim is Maggie Grace. For Will Graham, it's William Petersen (original CSI) as he did the best job of playing him IMO.**

 **Thanks to the few of you who have been letting me know what you think of this, it's pretty much all that's stopped me giving up on the story.**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed. This isn't the real world, and it isn't a Disney Princess story either.**

The hardest thing for Carina to get used to since she joined the team was having a family. For twenty nine years she'd been convinced that she'd been discarded at birth because she was unwanted. Then suddenly she found that her mother had in fact given her up in the belief that she'd have a better life with the nice people who adopted her, because she was a broken woman after she was told her baby's father was dead, and the world that she lived in was no fit place to bring children into.

So, after twenty nine years of being abused and discarded, Carina had a mother and father who loved her, and that wasn't all. Sarah, her best friend, perhaps her only true friend after those doubts about Zondra came out, was her mother's Goddaughter, and had called her father 'Uncle Bry' for most of her life. Chuck, Sarah's guy, was her mother's Godson and her father was also Uncle Bry to him.

Sarah's and Chuck's mothers had been Auntie Em and Auntie Mary respectively to them when they were growing up and Chuck and Ellie, his sister, called her mother Auntie Di. The CIA's Deputy Director for Analysis Jack Ryan was Godfather to all of them and Chuck and Ellie called him 'Uncle Jack'. Hell, they called Roan Montgomery, the fucking Seduction Master, Uncle Roan. Even CIA Director Graham and John Casey were part of 'the family', Chuck and Ellie called Graham 'Uncle Lang' for fuck's sake!

For that matter they also had the FBI's Executive Assistant Director for National Security Branch, Will Graham, 'Uncle Will', or 'Uncle Billy' as Chuck playfully called him sometimes. Carina hadn't gotten the joke until Chuck explained that he didn't like to be reminded that he'd been named after his famous third cousin, the TV evangelist.

How had she gone from being on her own all of her life to being part of this big, complicated family of famous spies in under five minutes? Hearing their stories made it a little easier to accept her life though.

Sarah's story had come out in the many drunken episodes that they had had together in the two years that they'd been each other's primary partner in the CATs, how close she'd been to Charlie because their mothers would take turns to take them in and look after them when the other had to go away for work, up until that last time when Sarah's father had kept her because Charlie's mother had been called away at the same time.

She knew the story of how Sarah's father had dragged her away with him when he took that opportunity to disappear and start a new life as a conman quite well, as more than a few nights had ended up in tears over THAT story. Sarah's life after that had been no bed of roses, but at least she'd avoided the physical and sexual abuse for the most part, until she was dragged into the CIA at least.

Chuck and Ellie's story though, while maybe not as bad as her's, was rough. Ellie had had to look after Charlie whenever her mother had to leave and 'Auntie Em' couldn't take them from before Chuck started school at five, and she was only eight then for fuck's sake! Sarah's mother had had to go into hiding after Sarah disappeared with her father because she'd been burned by the CIA, due to the fact that she knew too much, so Ellie had taken over being his mother much of the time when she was eleven, and became a full time mother when their mother disappeared just before she turned thirteen.

Ellie might not have had to endure the abuse that Carina had, though she'd told Carina about some of the incidents where she'd been raped because she was forced by their circumstances to be out in the world with no-one to protect her in her teens, but she'd been to all intents and purposes her brother's mother from before she turned thirteen. Fuck! Carina couldn't even imagine having that sort of responsibility at that age, she'd had her hands full enough just looking after herself when she was a teenager.

For all of that, Ellie had done a good job of raising both herself and her little brother, they both held jobs from as soon as they were legally able to keep up the cover life of being struggling students who had been abandoned by their parents, and yet they still managed to do well enough to earn full scholarships and had been just as successful at university, with Ellie getting through Medical School on a Neurology track and Chuck doing Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Stanford. Yeah, Chuck got expelled when he was framed for cheating at the end, but he went back with her father and made them give him his degrees under his Charles Carmichael name and got a five million settlement out of them as well, they should have pushed for more but they decided to keep it quiet.

For that matter, she wasn't sure that her life had been that much easier than living the cover life they'd been leading ever since their father went crazy and left. The CIA and other organisations who'd infiltrated the CIA, NSA and god knows what other parts of the government were even now actively looking for Sarah's mother, the great analyst who knew too much, and Chuck's father, the almighty Orion, the scientist who gave them all of their greatest technology developments. That was why they all had to go deep after Chuck's father left, and even deeper again when the CIA suddenly renewed the hunt for Sarah's mother soon after Chuck's father disappeared.

Carina snorted to herself at the thought that her parents had been instrumental in turning Chuck and Ellie into the elite special operations and intelligence operatives that they were. Their 'Aunts' and 'Uncles' had decided that the best way to protect them was to make sure that they could protect themselves, so they were put through the FULL special operations and intelligence operative training when they were teenagers, building on the base that Frost had given them when she started training them and Sarah when they were toddlers. Not to mention Sarah's mother, 'Uncle Jack' and 'Uncle Will' teaching them everything about the analysis side of the business too.

Shit, the thought that Chuck and Ellie had successfully gone through SEAL training when Chuck had just turned fifteen and Ellie was eighteen was too incredible for words, but it was true, she'd heard it from her father and saw the certificates and pictures at his place. She couldn't even imagine how the 'family' had gotten them, especially Ellie as a girl, into that training, or any of their other training either, they also had Navy and Air Force pilot training for fuck's sake! She was pretty sure that both of her parents had had a hand in that though.

It wasn't conceivable how they could do all of this training and operate at that level in their world while managing to successfully pull off the cover lives that they'd been leading since ninety two, but they did. That was the proof of just what incredible agents they were, they were both extraordinary in so many areas, but they'd convinced the 'normal' world that they were no more than a couple of very bright kids who'd struggled through after their parents abandoned them.

Then Chuck had to play along with being destroyed after that public debacle at Stanford and go into the ridiculous cover life of a minimum wage computer serviceman at a store that made Walmart look good. Her father had taken her to the Buy More and the Wienerlicious to show her what their cover lives had been like there. She got Sarah's point about what she and Casey had had to do, but how the hell had Chuck, Jeff and Anna managed to stay sane in that fucking place for YEARS?

And now Chuck had all of the government's secrets in his head, courtesy of a program that his father, the mad scientist, had developed and Bryce Fucking Larkin had sent him to take another crack at destroying him? If someone put his life into a story it'd be thrown out as totally implausible!

Carina shook her head as she parked the Talon in the parking lot across the road from the HST office, thinking that she still had to get Sarah and Chuck back for laughing at her like that about her reaction to what the car could do, it had been hard to take in, but she was coming to really like being part of this family, and having parents.

* * *

That night, they were working back to catch up on the backlog of jobs from the last few days while they'd been tied up on a mission, just part of what they had to put up with to maintain a successful cover life. They had a hankering for Chinese, so Chuck and Sarah made a food run down to Chinatown. Chuck decided to go to one of his old favourites, the Bamboo Dragon, because he hadn't been there for a while.

They placed everyone's orders and waited out the front of the restaurant, talking. Sarah saw Chuck having an Intersect flash and pulled his face down to kiss him to cover it up. Some people obviously thought that it was inappropriate but most had an 'Awww, isn't that sweet?' reaction.

While she had her mouth near his ear she whispered a question. "What did you see?"

Chuck turned them around so that she could see over his shoulder. "The waitress at table sixteen with a tattoo on the inside of her forearm?" He waited for Sarah to give a nod so slight that he felt it against his cheek rather than saw it to say that she'd seen her.

"She's Cho Mei Ling, the PRC's top operative. She's never been on U.S. soil before as far as we know, unless she's infiltrated some of our embassies."

"Are you sure?"

"Pretty sure, yeah, or at least the Intersect is."

Sarah's response was a worried. "That can't be good!" She thought about the matter for a moment and then started, grabbing her phone out of the back pocket of her jeans as if it had gone off in vibrate mode. She speed dialled Carina as she brought the phone to her ear, snapping. "Co to jest Karina?" into it.

She glanced at Chuck and then turned away as if she didn't want him to hear what she was saying, speaking quietly but harshly in Polish into the phone, until she suddenly spat out. "Wezmę cię za to suko!" and hung up with tears starting in her eyes.

Chuck asked her what was wrong and pulled her into his arms as she cried. "My sister is such a bitch! Papa asked why we were taking so long getting the food and she told him that we must have gone back to your place to screw around. Now Papa's coming here to confirm that we're really here and not at your place! Uncle Janek is coming as well! She's just jealous because Papa likes you but he won't let that would be gangster that she's seeing in the house, so she's trying to cause trouble for us!"

They got the food and went back to Chuck's Summit to wait for the others. It was no surprise that it was their 'regular' control van that turned up first from the office, because since Jeff had started using the original Impreza for most of his service jobs, they normally left the van in the loading dock with the main gear inside. They were surprised to see everyone but Bry in the van though.

The food was passed around and they set up to watch the restaurant while they waited for Bry. He wasn't much longer, because even though he was further away, he was driving Ellie's old Lancer hatchback now, so he could move quickly when he needed to. He grabbed what he wanted from what was left of the food and they talked about what they knew about Captain Cho while they kept a lookout on the restaurant.

After a while, Casey called out from the driver's seat. "Heads up! She's leaving!"

When they checked the screen displaying the camera feed, they saw her hurrying around the corner from the employees' entrance out back in bike gear. There was also a stretch limousine pulling away from the front of the Bamboo Dragon so Chuck asked "Did you see who was in the limo Casey?"

"It's Ben Lo Pan, he owns half of Chinatown and there's talk of him being involved with the triads." Just then Cho reappeared on a sports bike and started following the limo. Chuck mused. "Well he definitely seems to be who she's after" as they in turn pulled out to follow Cho.

The limo pulled up at another building in Chinatown and they hung back as Cho put her bike out sight around the corner from the limo, using the zoom lenses and wide spectrum imaging of the van's cameras to see what she was doing as she popped the compartment behind the seat open and extracted a couple of pistols.

Casey made a crack about 'Crotch rocket and Glocks, my kinda gal!', but Chuck corrected him distractedly. "No, they're not Glocks Casey, they're Chinese military QSW oh sixes. Her using them says that this isn't likely to be a simple information gathering mission. They're generally only used for sanctioned assassinations by their operatives."

Casey looked back to ask whether he was sure and Chuck held up his Glock 20 as a reminder as he spoke. "I know Glocks Casey, and I know those pistols too, we've got some back in the armoury."

As they watched her climb the drainpipe to the roof of the building that Lo Pan had gone into, it was agreed that there was no question about who her target was. This put Sarah, Casey and Carina in the position of having to reluctantly agree that it was their duty to stop the assassination, as letting a prominent foreign national be killed on U.S. soil wouldn't look good. It rankled that Chuck and the others couldn't be seen to be part of this so they had to stay in the van, but when Sarah tried to talk to him about it, Chuck just kissed her and told her to go, he understood.

Sarah, Casey and Carina didn't have any trouble dealing with guard outside the private club in the building, but when Sarah saw Cho with her pistols in hand and called out "Gun!" Lo Pan's guards started shooting at THEM! While the majority of his guards were shooting it out with Sarah, Casey, Carina and Cho, a smaller group got Lo Pan out of the club and the building.

When the doors burst open and they hustled Lo Pan out of the building, Chuck swore, grabbing his Glock 20 with a couple of extra mags and jumped out to run through the shadows towards them. Bry and Ellie jumped out in tactical gear and followed him to provide cover. He was almost up to the building when the doors burst open again and two of the guards came out, dragging a third figure between them, one who was bound and hooded. Chuck had to slow to a fast walk when he came into the light, but the guards took no notice of him as they threw the man into the trunk and jumped into the limo just before it took off.

Chuck broke into a run, drawing the 20 as he did so, but every spot he could shoot at could have endangered the man in the trunk, so he swore and grabbed one of the extra mags from his back pocket. Too fast for most to follow, he released the mag in the pistol, catching it as it dropped before inserting the other mag and pulling back the slide to eject the round in the chamber and load the first round from the new mag.

He stopped and carefully took aim, firing the subsonic tracker round into a safe part of the bodywork before quickly tucking the pistol into the back of his jeans and bending down to pick up and pocket the round he'd ejected, just before Cho burst out of the building with her pistols extended at the rapidly departing limo.

* * *

When Chuck cried. "Stop! Don't shoot!" before she could fire because the armour piercing rounds that she most likely had loaded would go straight through the trunk lid and hit the guy in the trunk, she turned the pistols on him.

"Where did they take him?"

"Who?"

"My brother! Where did they take him?"

Playing confused civilian seemed the safest course here, so Chuck said "I guess he must have been that guy those men threw in the trunk. That was why I tried to stop you shooting at the car, I thought that you might hit him. I don't know who they are or where they went, I just saw them throwing a guy in the trunk and ran up here to try and stop them."

She was starting to settle down a little when Sarah, Casey and Carina came barrelling out of the doors and saw Chuck with two pistols in his face, shouting. "Federal agents, drop your weapons!" as they aimed their pistols at Cho.

Cho couldn't understand the frustrated sigh that the man in front of her gave at that, but she saw all the signs of fear disappear from his face as he spoke in flawless Chinese. _"Captain Cho Mei Ling, you cannot help your brother_ _if you are_ _killed, and I can assure you that_ _that_ _will happen if you harm any of us. I have no wish to see you dead, and I definitely do not want to see my_ _partner_ _s harmed_ _in any way_ _, as they mean a lot to me. Please, if you lower your weapons,_ _we can_ _help you find your brother, I fired a tracker into that car so we will be able to follow them."_

She just stared at him, she couldn't believe the way that he was looking down the barrels of the pistols in his face without a shred of fear as he addressed her in such perfect Chinese. He was making sense though, especially now that she could see the agents behind him and realised that she recognised two of them. Those two had quite formidable reputations.

There was absolutely no way that she could take down the three agents in front of her, let alone those other two in tactical gear who were covering them, and she would need help if she was to locate and rescue Li Wei, so she did as he said and lowered her pistols.

He nodded thanks when she did so and held out his hand, speaking in Chinese again. _"Please._ _It will help_ _with_ _th_ _e_ _current_ _situation if you hand over your_ _pistol_ _s, they will be returned to you_ _when it has settled down."_ She glanced at the people covering them and did as he asked. He bowed to her and added. " _I must apologize Captain Cho, I have not introduced myself, I am Charles Carmichael."_ before turning to show the pistols to the others.

The three in front of them lowered their pistols but Sarah's anger was obvious as she gave Chuck a 'This isn't over!' look and Mei Ling murmured so that only he could hear. "That woman is not happy with you!" He shook his head in sorrow as he murmured. "No, she isn't."

Carina had pulled the van around the corner to where Mei Ling's bike was and they quickly manhandled the bike up into the back of the van. As soon as it was inside and tied down, they jumped in and took off after the limo. Anna and Jeff had been tracking it from the moment they saw Chuck shoot a tracker into it.

They worked out the plan on the way and had a fairly solid plan together by the time the limo stopped, at Lo Pan's mansion as they found when they looked up the address.

Sarah had put her foot down about Chuck being part of the team who went in and Casey and Carina supported her stance on that, pointing out that WHEN they reported this, they needed to be able to report that he wasn't involved with that part. Chuck gritted his teeth and agreed, and Sarah ignored everyone as she kissed him and made him promise to be careful in whatever he did that night. She wasn't at all surprised that he demanded the same promise from her before he'd make his promise.

Mei Ling had been shocked to find that, of the nine people in the van, only one spoke no Chinese at all. The Carmichael man, that woman who was obviously his sister, her and the other Chinese woman all spoke fluent Chinese. Agent Walker also had quite a good grasp of the language, and the other three agents had a working knowledge of it, what a team like this was doing in Los Angeles she had no idea.

She was also surprised by the degree of courtesy given to her and the female agents when they were changing into battle dress on the way to Lo Pan's mansion. She'd never seen men NOT taking the opportunity to look at women while they were getting undressed before, but these four men made a point of not doing so. The fact that the woman who was Carmichael's sister had immediately jumped to dig out her spare set of battledress for her to wear because she was the closest to her size just added to her confusion, why were these people doing all of this for her?

The weapons that they had in the van weren't to be believed, suppressed H&K MP5/10s, Russian AS VAL suppressed assault rifles, they even had improved Chinese Type 67 Silent Pistols. These Type 67 pistols retained all the features that had made them the most effective silenced pistols ever made, but had been reworked to eliminate the problems that came from their rough manufacture. Of course they also had throwing knives but throwing stars? Who were these people?

In addition to the weapons, they had other, more sophisticated, equipment. They had a full command set-up and Carmichael went over the processes to attach their small remote access devices to the security and camera networks as well as the computer networks in the mansion so that he and the other two technical people could take over those networks.

Once all the preparation was done and they had what they needed, the van was driven past Lo Pan's mansion slow enough for Mei Ling, Sarah, Casey and Carina to jump out on the move, and then parked out of sight around the corner.

Chuck quickly changed into tactical gear and geared up as soon as they were out of the van. He had agreed not to go in with the first team, but Sarah, and probably Casey at least, knew quite well that Chuck, Ellie, Bry and Anna would be over the wall and coming after them the moment anything went wrong.

At first everything was going well, they got the remote access devices onto the camera and security networks so that Chuck, Anna and Jeff could bypass the cameras, sensors and alarms. This let the first team get into the mansion without trouble, and they plugged the remote access devices into the computer network as well so they hacked into the systems and started getting copies of whatever Lo Pan had on his systems.

It went only well up to a point though, and then it went to shit. Lo Pan's security people must have been more on the ball than most, because they suddenly turned off the camera network and Sarah, Casey, Carina and Mei Ling just as suddenly found themselves surrounded by over two dozen heavily armed mercenary guards.

Chuck told Jeff to keep collecting what he could off the systems and to keep his finger on the button to trigger the shit bombs the second he told him to, then they took off. The 'shit bombs' were an innovation they'd come up with years ago, they were included in the flash storage on the remote access devices and when activated they released malware to wipe out any systems that they could reach.

The shit bombs also hunted out any gateways to SCADA smart building systems and attacked them. When smart systems existed, they normally managed to cause power surges that killed the power and shorted out devices to start fires all over the place, which was quite handy when everything went to shit and they needed something to cover their escape.

They weren't worried about leaving Jeff on his own in the van, that thing was armoured better than many Light Armoured Vehicles and the locks were as good as impregnable, so he'd be safe enough in there.

* * *

Chuck and the others went over the wall and slipped into the mansion. This was made easier by the fact that in taking down the cameras to blind them, Lo Pan's people had also blinded themselves. They went through the house like silent death, taking out the guards with suppressed weapons, knives or their bare hands as they headed for where Li Wei and the first team were. Their obvious cameras had been taken off of them when the house cameras went down and they were captured, but they had plenty of other cameras and tracking devices hidden all over them that were still working.

When they'd cleaned out the guards up to the room where where Lo Pan was cackling about his brilliant plan though, they held off to let Lo Pan finish boasting about this plan of his. Chuck was watching for any indication of actions against Sarah, Casey, Carina, Mei Ling or Li Wei, in which case of course they would have taken out everyone else in the room, but failing that it was worth waiting to get a record of what Lo Pan was planning. As soon as Lo Pan told the guards to take them out of there Chuck gave Jeff the order to set off the shit bombs and they went in, all of Lo Pan's guards were down in seconds.

As soon as Lo Pan's men were down, they went through and collected any documentation, computing devices and digital storage that they could find in the house, and cleaned out Lo Pan's safe as well. Once they'd recovered all of their gear, they headed out.

Casey and Carina delivered a well secured Lo Pan and most of what they'd taken from his house and his systems, plus the recordings of him boasting about his plan, to the FBI's Los Angeles Field Office in his own limo, which they left at the FBI office once they'd signed everything over to the FBI. Then they hoofed it to where the others were waiting in the van.

When they left there, they had to apologetically hood Mei Ling and Li Wei, as they couldn't know where their base was. They dropped Bry and Jeff off in Chinatown to pick up the Lancer and the Summit on the way through. As they had done with Alahi, they pulled the van into the loading bay and closed the garage door before they took them out of the van and down into the base, and they weren't unhooded until they were inside the base. Then they sat down to talk.

* * *

Chuck sat down at the computer and dredged up the full story of what had happened, but he suddenly stopped and swore when he discovered one document in Chinese. The others knew that something was wrong and came over to find out what it was. When Li Wei read the document he went off at his sister, because it was essentially a burn notice as she'd gone against orders to rescue him.

Lo Pan and the triad had taken Li Wei to trade him for a triad captain who was currently in custody, but the Chinese Government had refused to even discuss doing a trade for a relatively minor official like Li Wei. Mei Ling had pleaded and then demanded that they recover her brother and she was ordered to drop the matter, her brother was gone and forgotten. When they realised that she'd gone rogue and went to the United States to save her brother herself, she was declared an enemy of the State. Because of what she knew, the orders on how to deal with her were essentially 'Shoot on sight!'

This led to another problem, because if Mei Ling returned Li Wei to the Chinese Consulate, or he just walked in having miraculously been rescued, the least that could be expected was strenuous questioning. Prison was more likely, and just shooting either or both of them to make the embarrassment of this business go away was a definite possibility.

Between Li Wei, Mei Ling and some of the others, a whole lot of shouting was going on with little of use being said. Chuck walked off without a word to get a bottle of whiskey and a glass, and by the time he came back, the bottle was over a third empty.

When he returned, he barked. _"STOP!"_ in Chinese in a commanding voice, this was enough to bring silence to the room and he asked Li Wei if he'd mind waiting in one of their meeting rooms while they discussed this, so that he could honestly say that he hadn't heard anything about what was planned. Li Wei went to argue but Mei Ling stopped him, saying in Chinese. _"Please Li, it is better this way!"_ He reluctantly agreed at that.

Once Casey had sealed Li Wei into one of the soundproof meeting rooms, Chuck went on, pointing with his glass at the document that they'd been arguing about. "From that, you obviously can't take Li Wei back, and we'll need assistance to get the People's Republic to publicly accept him back without any repercussions. For this to have any hope of working, that assistance will have to be officially from the American Government, and I'm afraid that they will demand a price for that assistance."

Mei Ling looked at him. "What kind of price?" She know that she wouldn't like what she was going to hear.

"They'll want you, but I'm banking on being able to make a deal to get them to settle for what you know."

"I will not betray my country like that!"

Chuck waved the glass at the screen with the document on it violently enough to splash whiskey across the desk. "That says that they have already betrayed you!"

"No, that is expected when someone disobeys orders!"

"How is that a suitable response after everything that you have done for your country?"

He took a breath to calm himself down. "Look. I'm sure that you know plenty of information that would not significantly harm the People's Republic, don't you?"

Mei Long looked confused. "Yes?"

"What if we could set it up so that you can tell them THAT information and then go into the Witness Protection program?"

"I could do that, but how do you think that you could manage that?"

They were all looking at Chuck now. "Hopefully I can call on the family to help me get that pushed through. Can you give me some examples of the types of things that you are prepared to share so we can see whether we can get a deal?"

Mei Ling nodded and gave him a list of over twenty items that she'd discuss, and said that she had over ten times that many similar items that she would be prepared to deliver.

Chuck looked hopeful as he was looking at the type of things that he could offer to use for the deal, and asked Mei Ling if she could wait with her brother while they did this. It took over an hour of negotiation with Auntie Di, Uncle Lang, Uncle Jack and Uncle Will, but they agreed to take the proposed deal to the DNI.

The deal was that the State Department would return Li Wei to the Chinese Consulate, along with parts of what had been taken with Lo Pan which were worth more to the Chinese than they were to America. The story would be that Li Wei was rescued when the FBI took Lo Pan down.

The primary payment for this would be that Mei Ling would share everything she knew, up to and including what she had indicated as the most sensitive information that she was prepared to share. After that, she would be put into the Witness Protection program.

It took a day to get the government to sign off on the deal, but it was signed off. They'd let Mei Ling and Li Wei have as much time together as possible while they were waiting fro the decision, because this would probably be the last time they got to see each other. Even if Li Wei was allowed to leave China again, he'd be watched too closely to have a chance to see his sister, as she was now listed as an enemy of the state.

Sarah, Casey and Carina escorted Li Wei to the State Department people who would be formally delivering him to the Chinese Consulate with enough pomp and ceremony to ensure that he would be quite a notable figure, and therefore difficult to disappear without a lot of questions being asked. They also went with them to oversee the handover.

While they were doing this, Chuck had a talk with Mei Ling. Mei Ling expressed her gratitude to Chuck and his people for saving her brother, and informed him that she was indebted to them. Chuck of course waved that off, and gave her his phone number, telling her to call if she needed anything, or just needed people to talk to.

She was quiet for a while after that, overcome by the gesture, but she looked at him. "I have to ask Agent Carmichael….."

"Chuck." At her confused expression, he added. "Please call me Chuck, I'm not really an agent and I'm more comfortable just being 'Chuck', if that's alright with you."

She nodded with a smile and started over. "Very well, Chuck, I have to ask, how did you tame Agent Walker?"

Chuck laughed, not knowing that Sarah had just entered the base, having returned from overseeing Li Wei's return to the Chinese Consulate.

"I don't believe that it is possible to 'tame' Sarah Captain Cho, and I wouldn't have it any other way. She's a force of nature and I love that about her."

"But the woman I have seen her be with you is nothing at all like what all the stories about her describe her as. She is commonly known across the world as the CIA's Enforcer, the one who is sent in to deal with situations that no-one else is capable of dealing with, much like your other partner, Major Casey. Agent Walker's reputation is quite formidable, and she is also known as the Ice Queen because she never allows anyone to get close to her. Yet with you, she is obviously a woman in love, if you don't call that 'taming her', what do you call it, Chuck?"

Sarah spoke up as she started walking down the stairs. "I don't know about Chuck, Captain Cho, but I'd call it exactly what you said, a woman in love. That isn't anything new though, I've loved him since I was a little girl." She leant down to kiss Chuck and then took a seat beside him. She looked at Mei Ling.

"Li Wei was VERY publicly returned to the Consulate, and the State Department indicated to them that they will be asking for more photo ops with him, as symbol of the cooperation between our two countries, so I believe that he should be safe now."

Mei Ling looked confused. "Thank you for that, but what do you mean by what you said Agent Walker?"

"This isn't a formal discussion Captain Cho, please call me Sarah."

"Very well, Sarah, please call me Mei, but please, what did you mean, why would you say that you have loved him since you were a child?"

"We didn't meet here, Mei, our mothers were, are, very good friends and Chuck and I were almost raised together when we were young. Chuck was my best friend up until I left when I was seven, and looking back with what I know now, I know that I loved him then too, though not in the same way I love him now of course. When I came back a little while ago, it was as though we were never apart."

"I suppose I am a little more mellow and warmer when I'm with Chuck, so you could perhaps attribute that to being tamer, but that's only relevant to Chuck and my family. Don't make the mistake of thinking that in a professional capacity I am any less the Enforcer or Ice Queen that I am known as, that would be a very bad mistake for anyone to make."

She looked at Chuck with a smile. "A force of nature, huh? I like that." She leant in for another kiss.

Mei spoke up again. "Chuck has given me his phone number to call if I need help or someone to talk to Sarah, do you have any issues with that?"

"Are you asking if I have a problem with you keeping in contact with Chuck, or any of us Mei? If so, no, I think that that's a great idea. There aren't many of us women at the top of the intelligence game and I'd like to keep in contact with you as well. I admire that you were prepared to risk so much to save Li Wei, and I know that Ellie, Chuck's sister, does as well. I am just glad that we could help you get Li Wei out safely so that you didn't have to make the sacrifice that you were prepared to."

She stopped and scribbled down her phone number, pushing it across to Mei. "That's my number if you ever want to call. I know that I don't need to tell you that you'll need to memorise the numbers and get rid of any record of them as the government officials that you'll be dealing with can't know about them."

Mei nodded in agreement.

With that, Sarah went through what the arrangements would be for delivering her to Washington and processing her information. Agent Miller would be escorting her to Washington, and would be overseeing her protection there and her sessions with the CIA, DIA and FBI people as well. If anyone deviated from the agreed structure, tried to exceed the agreed limits or tried to remove Mei from her custody, Agent Miller would have panic button that would call in the support team who would be on-site for all sessions. Mei would also have a panic button to call Agent Miller if anything happened when they were separated for any reason. When it was agreed that the sessions were finished, Mei would be given a new identity and go into the Witness Protection program.

She didn't mention the fact that Carina would also be using her time in Washington to get to know her mother, as that was Carina's personal business.

A few hours later, Mei Ling and Carina were on a C-37 to Washington. They'd collected her things from the hotel where she'd been staying so that she had a chance to freshen up and had clean clothes, they'd also washed her clothes while she was there so she had things to wear. Her bike, weapons and any sensitive equipment were added to the team's collections, and Carina was hanging onto her pictures of Li Wei and his family for her until she headed into Witness Protection so that she wouldn't lose them.

They knew that this wasn't the last they'd see of Mei, and she surprised herself even more than them when she embraced them with tears in her eyes as she was leaving.

 **A/N: Co to jest** **Ka** **rina** **? Is hopefully** **the equivalent of** **'What is it Carina?'** **in Polish**

 **Wezmę cię za to suko! Should be 'I'll get you for this you bitch!'**


	7. Lost Soul

**Thanks JR.**

 **Usual disclaimers for the Land of Litigation, no rights to any characters portrayed, this isn't the real world, and it ain't no Disney Princess story neither.**

Chuck shook his head as he was cleaning 'the guns', thinking that this showed just how stressed he'd been about getting the deal for Mei sorted out, as it wasn't like him to neglect looking after his equipment. Uncle Bry had drummed that into him fifteen years ago 'You have to look after your equipment if you want it to look after you!' and he normally followed that rule diligently.

He'd appreciated it when the others brought the guns for him that night as they were his go to weapons for tight situations. 'The guns' were a pair of (well, one of the pairs of) machine pistols made from heavily modified Glock 20s that he'd had made up. They had the Glock 18's selective fire, long slides to cater for six inch barrels and nine inch threaded barrels. The longer barrels improved the accuracy, range and penetration of the weapons, the extra weight of the extended slides improved their handling and the three round burst capacity made them even more deadly. With the custom made thirty round extended magazines, laser sights and suppressors attached they were devastatingly effective in close quarters. Anna often said that he looked 'scary as shit' as he went though a facility with the guns in either hand, talking out anyone they came up against.

Things were quiet for the week that Carina was away with Mei, Sarah took over the office again and they went back to pretending to be an ordinary tech services company. Sarah and Chuck used their 'date night' for the cover that week to go down to San Diego to see Sarah's mother, swinging over to the car warehouse to change to Sarah's Porsche for the trip as it was more fun.

When Carina returned she had good news, as Mei's Witsec identity was actually based in Los Angeles, working in a martial arts studio. No-one was suforpposed to know that of course, but Mei slipped her a note when she said good bye. Mei had Chuck and Sarah's phone numbers, so they knew she'd contact them when she was able to do so safely.

* * *

A few weeks after that, they had another mission. Only people who really knew him would have picked it up, but Chuck could see how worried, or perhaps frightened, Uncle Lang was about something to do with this mission. The reason for that came out when he flashed on Laszlo Mahnovski's full file after they displayed his picture.

When he came out of that flash, he looked at Uncle Lang, getting a very slight nod in response, oh yeah, he could see why this disturbed Uncle Lang. Laszlo was more of a genius than Chuck in specific areas, but he seemed to focus on one or two fields rather than dabbling across the board as Chuck did. When he was eleven, an unscrupulous CIA recruiter who'd been trolling for late high school and college age prospects had discovered Laszlo in an arcade parlour. Being the type with absolutely no morals or compunctions about taking a child's life away, he'd talked Laszlo's unsuspecting parents into signing control of him over to the CIA's representatives, convincing them that these people could give him everything he needed to make the most of himself.

Laszlo had earned his degrees at fourteen, and his Ph D at seventeen, but he hadn't seen the outside world since then. The CIA had been using him just like they had Stephen to create whatever technology they wanted, and they'd kept him locked away in an underground bunker without any access to the outside world to ensure that he did what they wanted.

Of course, the file that had been officially provided for Laszlo hadn't covered any of this, that file had portrayed him as a CIA scientist who'd had a breakdown and had gone totally psychotic out of the blue. Langston had smelled a rat and asked Jack to quietly dig out his real file when the case for the urgent need to stop the psychotic scientist came across his desk.

One of the few elements of truth in the reports about Laszlo was the fact that he was unhinged, as that life he'd been forced into had invariably driven him more than a little crazy! This was the natural result of the way they'd treated him ever since he was a child, forcing him into university at eleven and pushing him to get through all of his degrees and doctorate inside six years. Then he was locked away in that facility so that he never saw anyone but his handlers or the inside of his prison while they kept him drugged up to make him more malleable.

What frightened Langston most was just how similar Laszlo's intelligence and personality was to Chuck's. Chuck could see from his expression as he looked at him that he was thinking that it was only by the grace of God that Chuck hadn't been trapped in a life like Laszlo's. (Langston often had flashbacks to his Southern Baptist upbringing from before those crackers killed his parents and his sister but this, too, he successfully hid from most people.) He was thinking that if they hadn't managed to get Ellie and Charlie away when Stephen disappeared, they could have quite easily been taken by the same elements of CIA as Laszlo was and forced into a life like the one he'd lived.

The file that the people who'd from the facility where Laszlo was had provided was heavily loaded with ghastly images of what he'd supposedly done. What they were trying to sell with it was quite clear, that Laszlo was a dangerous psychopath who wasn't safe to approach. They'd underlined this with messages that the experimental attempts to medicate him to correct his violent behaviour had put his body into a state where attempting to use normal measures to sedate him would almost certainly cause him to fly into a homicidal rage.

The so called evidence was well crafted, most agents and other intelligence personnel (let alone law enforcement people) wouldn't have been able to spot the anomalies and identify what they were trying to do, but the family did. The people who had kept him in that facility until he escaped were obviously terrified of what would happen if he managed to talk to anyone else, so they were trying to ensure that no-one else would even try to capture him. They wanted him dead!

The thing was, most of his so called victims had been killed very professionally, and then the injuries had been made _very_ messy to make it look like a crazed madman in the midst of a psychotic frenzy had attacked them. Those who knew exactly what they were looking at could see what happened though and the family had enough of them. None was more qualified than Ellie to identify this, as she had all the training on what to do _and_ she was a working ER doctor as well.

For all that they were certain that Laszlo wasn't the crazed animal that he was being portrayed as, the urgency to find him was no less. The people who'd had him were still looking for him, trying to recover him, and they'd spread the description of his homicidal rampage around the law enforcement bodies in the area to try and get him shot on sight if anyone else saw him first, so they were racing both the bad elements of the CIA and the legitimate police forces to snatch him away before anything happened to him.

* * *

There was another question to be answered first though, as Sarah grabbed Chuck's arm and asked in a harsh whisper why the hell Director Graham had been murmuring 'Blessed be' in a southern accent before he got off the link, Langston Graham was no god fearing southern boy!

Chuck responded even more quietly. "No, _Langston Graham_ wasn't." He hesitated. "OK, come on, we can't talk about this in here."

Carina caught his arm as they turned to leave, asking with her eyes to be included. Chuck nodded and pulled her along with them.

Out in the parking lot across the road from the HST office, Chuck leaned against his Summit and started talking.

"OK, this is the way I heard it. This started in Sweet Water Alabama, back in nineteen sixty six. That was where sixteen year old Otis Davis vowed to do something about how his parents and sister had died as he watched them being buried. You see they'd been killed by crackers when they were coming back from a church dance in the next county."

"Otis was in the back of his Daddy's truck as it was bouncing along the road and when he saw headlights coming up fast behind them he called out to his Daddy. His Daddy obviously didn't like the looks of that because he put his foot down, but their old truck was pretty much held together with baling wire and it didn't make much difference."

"What Otis was told later was that a group of white boys had turned up at the dance and his older sister Sissy had caught their eye. They'd tried to make her go off with them but his Daddy had stopped them, and there were too many other folk around for them to do anything about it there so they apparently decided to bide their time until there wasn't anyone else around to stop them having their fun. Anyway, that car caught them up quickly and the white boys were hanging out the windows and bashing on the side of the truck, Otis was being bounced around too much in the back to see what was goin' on but then something crashed into the side of the truck and their truck went flying right off the road. Otis was thrown out of the back of the truck in the crash and ended up in the bushes, but when he came to after a few minutes he could see their truck down the road a ways, all smashed up."

"The car had pulled up next to the wrecked truck and the white boys had gotten out, at first the others were going off at one of them, saying that now they weren't gunna get nothing from her with her messed up like that. Then they all started laughin' and callin' out things at his Ma and Pa and Sissy. He heard his Daddy shout something at them that must have riled them up because one pointed at something near the truck and said something, and another one pulled out a lighter, lit it and threw it at where the first one had pointed. The truck went up in flames and they all stood around and laughed while his family screamed, they didn't get back into their car and take off until after the screamin' had stopped. Otis stayed where he was for a while longer after they'd left, then got up and went to check on the wreck of their truck, even though he knew they were all dead. After that he left to walk back the way they'd come, he thought his arm might be broken because it hurt real bad and his leg hurt too, but he kept goin' down the road."

"He found a farm a few miles down the road and the folks there took him into town to the police station. He could tell from the looks the cops were giving each other that they were lying when they said that there was no-one in town who came close to matching the detailed descriptions he gave of the white boys, or their car. It later came out that the Sheriff's son was one of the ones in the car and the others were his friends."

"Anyway, after the funeral, Otis asked around town, and he found out who the crackers who killed his family were, as well as where the one with the car lived. He took his daddy's shotgun and went out there the night he found that out. They were there, all five of them, drinking and laughing about that dumb nigger who thought he could do anything against them when their families owned the whole damned town. He knocked on the door and blew the one who opened it in half before he could get out more than. "What do you want boy?" He used the other barrel to take head clean off the one who was trying to get his gun out, then beat the others to death with the shotgun, though he smashed the shotgun in the process."

"It turned out that the one who lived there was a 'shine runner, because there were boxes of 'shine all over the house, which gave Otis an idea. He went through the house, collecting any money, guns and ammo he could find, along with food and drink and anything else that caught his eye and carried everything out to load it into the car. The car was an old fifties Chevy and it didn't look like much, hell, the marks from where they'd run his Daddy's truck off the road didn't stand out among the other scrapes, but when he started it to let it warm up he could tell that it had some go. This was obviously the cracker's 'shine running car, no wonder it caught them so easily that night. That was what decided him that this was the car that he'd use to get him the hell out of there."

"When he thought he had everything he wanted, Otis went back in and smashed the bottles of 'shine all over the house. Then, getting to the front door he lit a match and tossed it onto the 'shine soaked rug. He waited until he was sure it had caught and the flames were racing across the floor before he turned and ran for the car. The car had started down the drive by the time the house went up like his Daddy's truck did."

"Otis got of town as quick as he could and just kept on headin' North in that car, trying not to do anything to attract attention. He slept in the car and ate what he'd taken from the house (and his family's farm) as long as it lasted so that he didn't have to stop anywhere or deal with folks any more than necessary until he was well out of Alabama, just stoppin' for gas when it was getting' low."

"He knew that he couldn't stay as Otis Davis, because by now the cops would know that the boys who'd just killed his family were all dead and the 'shine runner's house had been burnt down, so as his family's farm was deserted too, the name of Otis Davis would be headin' up the wire for sure. His folks had been good god fearin' folk and never let him hang out with the bad crowds, but he'd seen them types around and knew what to look for, so he'd chased down the people he needed to get new papers a few times on his way up North. He'd also taught himself to sound more like an educated Northerner by listenin' to the radio and tryin' to match what they were sayin' as he went along. His Papa always said that you didn't need book smarts to be smart, and he knew havin' a new name would do him no good if he still talked like an Alabama dirt farmer."

"By the time he got to Pennsylvania he decided that he'd run far enough and tracked down somebody with enough pull to get him solid enough papers to give him an identity that he could stick with. It cost him a fair pile of cash, but that was how Otis Davis, the sixteen year old uneducated dirt farmer from Alabama became Langston Graham, the twenty two year old recent Harvard Law graduate from Vermont. The real Langston Graham had tried to welch out on a bet with the wrong people and got himself quietly dead and buried, but no-one had told his folks or the cops that and he was a similar size and look to Otis so it should hold up OK so long as he didn't hang around Vermont too much."

"Luckily, at nearly six and a half feet tall, most folk were prepared to accept that _Langston_ just looked young for his age, much like they did when I was a teenager. He chose Reading, Pennsylvania as somewhere that was suitably out of the way but big enough for him to disappear in for his home and set up accounts in banks in the name of Langston Graham there, depositing most of the money he'd taken from those white boys. He also organised himself a driver's license etc there, but when he did that he found out what had brought Langston Graham to Pennsylvania, because 'his' draft notice caught up with him. Given that he'd already gotten wind of the fact that the hunt was still very much on for the black boy who had killed that Sheriff's son and four other white boys down south though, he decided that the army would be a good place to hide and went in for his induction."

"As the war in Vietnam was heating up, it wasn't long before he was sent over there and he was sent straight to the front lines with the Marines. They quickly found that he was damned good at most things that mattered in the fighting. He could find Charlie and fight as good as anyone, better than most, he was also really good at pretending to be a good Marine. As a result of the fact that he was always in the middle of the fighting and men looked up to him, even with being black he was made a corporal almost immediately, a sergeant soon after that. It was only about nine months after that that he got a field commission for successfully taking over the assault of a major Viet Cong stronghold and led his men to victory after their officer died heroically in the fighting. Dumb white boys who caused him trouble were easy to get rid of but smart white boys required a lot more care and effort, and that one had been smart, he'd seen the holes in 'Langston's story and was asking difficult questions, he was also starting to send queries up the line about Sergeant Graham. Anyway, he was a real bastard and no-one missed him."

"Lieutenant Graham was very good at strategic and tactical planning, he'd proven himself in combat and had shown himself to be frighteningly effective at extracting information from prisoners, if he was white he would have been slated for big things, but the colour of his skin meant that he'd probably gotten as far as was going to, in the Marines at least. That was why when Uncle Lang was approached by the spooks about a year after he made lieutenant, he was quite interested in hearing what they had to say. When they offered him a job away from the Marines with a chance of real advancement, well he was a smart man who knew when to jump ship and he took them up on their offer."

"Uncle Lang spent another four years or so in Vietnam and Cambodia doing whatever jobs the CIA required of him before he was extracted back to the States for bigger things. His time in country with the CIA had given him the opportunity to study up on who he was meant to be, so by the time he went "home" he was able to fool just about anyone. It also gave him the time and access to the materials he needed to educate himself and plan out what he wanted to do and where he wanted to go. Once he was back and based in Langley he started to put his plans into action, he'd made a name for himself in Asia, but when he came back he showed them that he could be far more effective than he'd ever been over there, he was a man on a mission and he pretty much steamrollered over anyone who stood in his way."

"He was unofficially known as the CIA's head of black ops, and he was feared because that tag was quite accurate, in his day Uncle Lang was a very dangerous man in the field. That was where he met Uncle Bry, Auntie Charly and Mom, they were assigned to work together for the toughest operations because they were the very best. That was the nucleus of the Spooks."

Sarah and Carina stared at Chuck, but made sure that they wouldn't be caught by any cameras when Sarah asked incredulously. "So CIA Director Langston Graham is actually Otis Davis, the church going son of an Alabama dirt farmer?"

"No, he _was_ Otis Davis, he _is_ Langston Graham!"

"Are you sure that Uncle Bry wasn't pulling your leg with this story Chuck? It just seems too out there to be true."

"Yep, because it wasn't Uncle Bry who told me the story, it was Uncle Lang, and he took me to Sweet Water once to show me the graves of his family, this is no joke. Besides, isn't having a story too out there to be true proof that you belong in this family?"

They both burst out laughing at that, as there was no arguing with the truth of _that_.

Sarah stopped then, looking puzzled. "Auntie Charly? I remember her, she was really tall, as tall as Uncle Stephen, but she disappeared?"

Chuck nodded. "Yeah, a mission went bad and she got amnesia from a head injury, she didn't regain her memory for eight years and didn't come back to the game after she saved her daughter from the ones who came after her then. She's happy now and we see her sometimes."

The look on Sarah's face said that she wanted to talk about this later.

* * *

With that, they went back inside and got working on the search for Laszlo. Chuck, Anna and Jeff were in charge of the search, as he was one of them, one of the nerds. Once Chuck started concentrating on how to find Laszlo, it didn't take long for him to click as to the obvious place to find him, the place where his journey into the darkness had started, the arcade on the Santa Monica Pier where that so-called CIA recruiter had found him when he was eleven.

It was quickly agreed that Chuck would have to be the one who went after Laszlo. In fact, the only other one at all suitable to go in with him was Anna, as Sarah, Ellie and Carina were all too tall and beautiful to fit into the gamers' world of the arcades (Anna was beautiful too, but she was just over five feet tall and her appearance could be altered enough with baggy clothes and makeup to fit in). Uncle Bry and Casey were obviously too old and dangerous to fit in, and on top of that Casey looked like a cop. Jeff was also too old for the arcades and he wasn't really up to handling serious trouble if anything came up, so Chuck wouldn't take him into a potentially dangerous situation like that.

They were monitoring communications as they reached the Pier, and picked up enough chatter to know that the other side must have come to the same conclusion that they had. The chatter didn't follow established patterns though, which convinced them that this wasn't a police or formal CIA or FBI operation. That was enough to make Chuck decide that if they were up against a rogue operation, they were going in loaded for bear and he pulled out a couple of 'the guns' and a couple of spare mags as well, handing one of each to Anna.

Without the suppressors, they could be carried in the back of the waistband of their jeans OK, and Anna's baggy clothes helped hide the weapon on her tiny frame. Chuck wasn't prepared for either of them to be in there without suitable protection if they were up against serious opposition, and the guns were the most protection they could carry without it being seen. Sarah, Casey and Carina also changed into their tactical gear and armed themselves, getting ready to come in if anything happened.

Chuck and Anna split up as they started searching the arcades, as they knew that chances were that they wouldn't have a lot of time before the others closed in. The fact that they were hearing them talking on the radios here said that they had access to Laszlo's original file, so the ones who'd had him had either sold it to the other side, or had gone rogue themselves. Either way the outcome wouldn't be good for Laszlo if they found him.

They were pretty sure that the other side couldn't break the encryption on their communications, but just to be sure, Anna didn't say anything to identify Laszlo when she found him, she just shamed him into competing against her on Guitar Shredder. "It's OK. Go ahead and run away, I can see why your ego wouldn't be able to handle a girl handing your arse to you on Shredder!"

Chuck snorted as he started moving as quickly as he could without attracting attention towards the arcade that had the Guitar Shredder machine. Anna wouldn't waste time with anyone but Laszlo at the moment, and there was only one arcade here that had Guitar Shredder, so with that one line she'd told him that she'd found Laszlo, where he was, and that she had a plan to keep him there long enough for Chuck to reach them.

Anna spotted the other agents in there just after Chuck arrived and leant over towards Laszlo as she played so that no-one else could hear her. "Look, we're here to help you with your problem. Do you see those agents over there by the Dance-A-Thon machine though? I'm pretty sure they want to take you back. So if you don't want to go back, my friend is the cute tall, dark and dorky guy to your right, go with him and we'll try to get you out of here."

Laszlo hesitated, but now that Anna had pointed them out he could recognise those agents for what they were and he was running ragged and coming apart at the seams after running and hiding for a couple of weeks now. He decided then and there that he had to trust someone, and neither this girl or the guy she'd pointed out looked anything like an agent, so he turned and took a step towards Chuck. The fact that Anna was the all time Guitar Shredder champion there didn't hurt their chances (she and Chuck had come down here quite often over the years to blow off steam when things got too much), and at that moment she launched into a monster riff that captured just about everyone's attention, so Laszlo's disappearance went un-noticed by most. Most, but not all, as the agents that Anna had pointed out were trying to fight their way through the growing crowd that was still accumulating to watch Anna's performance.

As soon as she'd confirmed that Chuck and Laszlo were out the door, Anna made a show of noticing that Laszlo was gone, throwing down the guitar controller and swearing and carrying on about how he'd piked out on the bet they had on this. She didn't have much trouble slipping through the crowd that was doing a good job of holding up the agents but she kept an eye out for anyone following.

Unfortunately, those agents _had_ managed to get a call out to the others that they had there looking for Laszlo, so when Chuck hustled him towards the road they ran into them. The flashes that Chuck was getting on the agents in front of them said that they, like the ones Anna had spotted, were all listed as current CIA or FBI agents, but they certainly weren't acting like CIA or FBI agents were supposed to act so he shoved Laszlo behind some cover.

As soon as Chuck pushed Laszlo out of the sight, the agents waiting for them all pulled out their pistols, and they started firing without a word of warning as soon as he pulled out his machine pistol. That put to rest any questions as to whether they were the bad guys or not, so Chuck ducked behind cover and began to return fire. Unfortunately for the ones who'd opened fire on him, he was a far better shot than they were, and he dropped one of them with each 3 rd burst he fired.

Anna pulled her machine pistol and started running when she hear the ripping sounds of the 10mm Auto firing three round bursts, because there was pretty much only one person who'd be firing off 3 rd bursts of 10mm on the Pier that night. She caught up to them in time to take out the agent who had somehow gotten behind Chuck and was in the process of drawing a bead on him. As Anna reached them, Chuck grabbed Laszlo and pushed him towards her, she grabbed his arm with her free hand and ran for the road with Chuck on their heels providing cover.

The van pulled up with the side door opening as they got to the road, and Casey grabbed each of them in turn by the arm to wrench them into the van. Chuck's feet had hardly cleared the sidewalk before Carina smoked the van away from the curb. As soon as they were a three or four blocks and a few turns away from the Pier though, Carina backed off and concentrated on blending in with the other traffic.

After making sure they were all OK, Sarah wanted to know what the hell had happened. Anna explained that she'd found Laszlo holding court on the Guitar Shredder machine and shamed him into accepting a challenge (stopping to flash Laszlo a smile and say 'Sorry' at that). It wasn't until after she'd started her turn that she spotted the other agents nearby, they must have come to see what the commotion was and seen Laszlo. She recounted how she'd pointed them out to Laszlo, banking on him being able to recognise them for what they were, and told him to go with Chuck if he wanted them to get him out of there before starting to showboat on Shredder to draw as much attention as possible to herself.

When the agents saw Laszlo leave and tried to go after them, she'd made a big thing of going on about the guy welching on their bet and taking off after him to start the crowd milling about to hold them up more, but before she caught up to them, Chuck and Laszlo had run into the other agents and Chuck had engaged them. Chuck took over there.

"Well I didn't exactly engage them, I just pulled out the machine pistol because they all had their pistols out and trained on me and the moment I did, they started firing. At no point did they identify themselves or call for us to give ourselves up, they just pulled their weapons and started firing, so I don't think we need to worry about having taken out anyone who was doing anything they were supposed to there."

Then he turned and held his hand out to Laszlo. "Hi, I'm Chuck, we'll give you a full explanation when we get home, but the short answer is that we were asked to get you out of there before the ones who had you or the others they told about you could find you. I know that you have no reason to trust us, but you have my promise that if we have our way, you'll never go back to where you were, or any other place like it."

He stopped and took a good look at Laszlo, trying to gauge what state of mind he was in. "Now don't freak out, but we _were_ engaged by the head of the CIA to recover you, and Sarah and Carina are CIA agents, but I swear to you that Director Graham didn't know about that facility until they put the word out that you went psychotic and killed all those people in your escape…."

Chuck was cut off by Laszlo's scream of "WHAT? I didn't kill anyone!"

"Calm down, OK? We know that! They were desperate to make sure that you didn't have a chance to talk to anyone else and tell what they were doing there, so they doctored the evidence to try and make sure whoever found you would shoot on sight if they didn't recover you first."

Laszlo visibly relaxed. "So they didn't actually kill a bunch of people to frame me then?"

Chuck shook his head sadly at that. "No, I'm afraid they did that alright, I was just saying that we could see how they'd doctored the evidence, the kills were professional, and then they'd been made to look like they'd been attacked by a homicidal maniac. We have people who were able to see through all the subterfuge."

It took a while for Laszlo to really accept that a number of people had been killed _purely_ to frame him in attempt to ensure that he was shot on sight. When he thought back to what had been done to him and what he'd been made to do over the past ten years especially though, he didn't have any doubt that those people would be capable of doing that.

They decided not to hit him with anything else on the way back. When they reached the HST office, Chuck set the surveillance feeds to play loops of previous recordings to ensure that there was no record that Laszlo Mahnovski had ever come into the Intersect team's base. Ellie checked Laszlo over, ran all the relevant tests and drew blood from him for testing.

* * *

After that, they sat him down and showed him the files that had been sent about him, and also told him what they knew about him, then Chuck hit him with a bombshell. "So Laszlo, what is _your_ impression of your mental health?"

Laszlo just looked at him for a while, then shook his head. "Not too good I guess, they had me locked up in that hole for ten years and as far as I can remember, when I escaped it was the only time I'd seen the sky in over five years, for that matter there were only one or two other times I was outside in that ten years. I haven't talked to anyone but those sadistic bastards that they had watching me for ten years either. On top of that, they've been pumping me full of drugs to keep me quiet the whole time, the only time I wasn't…. medicated was when they stopped the drugs because they were effecting my performance."

Chuck nodded. "That's great, I was afraid that we were going to have to fight to convince you that you needed help, but you've already recognised that for yourself. The fact that you've accepted that will make it far easier for us to organise whatever help you need. OK, here's the plan, what we want to do is quietly fly you across to Washington to see a therapist we have there who is really good and we know will keep your secrets. You'll stay there and work with him until you're both comfortable that you've addressed your issues, and then we'll work out how to make you disappear safely."

He glanced at Laszlo. "My father has been seeing this therapist for over ten years now, he is still seeing him at least once a week, but if you knew what state he was in at the start and what he did to himself to put himself there you'd understand that that's doing really well, all things considered. How would you feel about working with someone like that?"

"That sounds like a good plan to me, but I think I probably need to go through a rehab centre first. Getting rid of all that shit that they were pumping into me should probably be my first priority."

"Oh, sorry! I didn't tell you about that, did I? My sister took enough blood from you to run tests for all known drugs, and we can use the results of those tests to set up your de-tox there while you're with the therapist. It wouldn't be safe for you to go to a rehab clinic anyway as there's a chance that they'll be watching them. If they are they could grab you while you were there. Is that OK?"

"Yeah. Yeah, that'd be great, I just thought that I'd have to go to a rehab clinic for that…. Wait, the lady doctor, she's your sister?"

"Yeah, that's Ellie. Look, we wanted to get your agreement before we did anything, but those ones who were after you were still officially CIA or FBI agents, so there's a chance that they may be able to find out who it was who got you away. Given that, I think we better disappear you before they have a chance to track you down again, so if you don't mind, I'll get started on that now."

Laszlo went white when he realised that those people would probably still be after him and stammered. "Yes. Yes or course!"

Chuck nodded and left to do what was required to get him out of Los Angles safely.

* * *

Laszlo turned to Anna, who was still with him. "Chuck said that the other two women in the van were CIA agents, but they aren't the only agents are they?"

She looked at him for a moment and then shook her head. "No, Casey, the big man in the van, is a DCS agent attached to the NSA and Chuck is officially a DCS field analyst attached to the NSA. Officially, Jeff, Ellie and I are nothing but civilians, and if you have any gratitude to us for saving you at all, no-one will ever hear anything but the official story from you. For that matter, no-one can know that it was the Director of the CIA who assigned us to rescue you either."

Laszlo looked at her. "You're placing a lot of trust in a drug addled lunatic who's just escaped from the CIA."

She shook her head again. "No, I'm trusting Chuck's judgement, he's decided to trust you and that's good enough for me."

"Well if you trust me, what are you _unofficially_?"

"We're all off the books CIA and FBI agents, though Jeff's more of a field analyst than an agent, and Chuck and Ellie are a lot more than that."

At that point, Chuck returned to say that they were organising a private jet to fly him to Washington, Carina and Anna would go with him to make sure that he got where he was supposed to, he also brought up something else. "Laszlo Mahnovski has to disappear, and both of your names are quite distinctive, so they'll attract too much attention if anyone hears them. We've booked you in with Doctor Dreyfus as Leslie Mahoney, as that's the closest phonetic match that we could find which isn't likely to be connected with your original name. For the foreseeable future, that will be your name, so try to make the effort to get used to it. When you're finished with Doctor Dreyfus and start a new life, you can pick another name if you like, but for now you're Leslie Mahoney."

Laszlo nodded musingly, trying his new name on his tongue. "Leslie Mahoney….. Yeah, I like that, I can get used to being Leslie Mahoney."

He turned to flash a smile at Anna. "Sorry Anna, you're not getting rid of me just yet."

She grinned back at him. "Oh, I'm sure I can live with that Leslie."

* * *

Chuck smiled to himself, as he knew Anna well enough to see how she was flirting with Las….Leslie. She was obviously interested in him, which could be fun, they just had to remind her that he was still fragile and to be careful with him. There were a few things that they needed to get sorted out before he left though.

"Leslie, we need to work out how big the threat is and how determined they're going to be to come after you. Obviously you were working on something big and shady for them to make this much of an effort to try and ensure that anyone else who found you would kill you before you had a chance to talk, so what was it?"

Leslie took a moment to get his thoughts together before he responded. "It was all sorts of things, they made me create whatever technology they wanted. In ninety seven, when I was dumped in that hole, I heard some of them saying that it had taken way too long to find a replacement for _him,_ it was another year or two before I got any name for _him_ , and even then all I heard was a code name. A lot of what I was developing was code breakers and devices to crack into secure systems, though I was also building secure communications systems, advanced surveillance systems, shaped charges to breach fortified facilities, all sorts of things. The biggest thing I was working on over the last ten years though was the last project that my predecessor had been working on, that one was _way_ out there, it was pure science fiction, but for some reason they seemed certain that it could work. The way they were talking about it, it was almost as though they'd actually _seen_ it working in someone's head and they were determined to get it working again, but that was impossible."

He was lost in his head as he recalled these things, so he didn't note how Chuck and Anna froze when he said that last and was surprised when Chuck asked harshly. "What was the name of that project?"

"What? What project?"

"The big one! The one you were just talking about! What was it called?"

"It was originally called the Omaha Project, but a few years ago something happened and they changed the project name to what my predecessor referred to the program as, the Intersect Project, why?"

Chuck was trying to calm himself. "You said that you heard a code name for your predecessor, what was it?"

"What's going on Chuck? Why do you want to know this?"

"What. Was. His. Name?"

"Orion! They called him Orion alright! What the hell's going on here?"

Chuck turned without a word and walked to the phone on the wall, using it as a PA to call everyone to the meeting room. When they were all there, he turned to Leslie and asked. "Leslie, can you tell everyone what you just told us about your big project and your predecessor, please?"

Leslie looked around the room, suddenly having doubts about these people. "The project started out as the Omaha project, but the name was changed to the Intersect Project a few years ago. It was a science fiction fantasy, or more to likely a nightmare because they wanted to use it to load massive amounts of information into a human brain so it could be accessed by the host, but no-one could survive that, let alone use it. I told them time and time again that it would only destroy, if not kill, anyone it was loaded into but they made me keep working on it. My predecessor, the one who came up with that mad idea, was called Orion. Why the hell are you people so interested in this crazy shit?"

Now that he was paying attention, he saw how most of them went white when they heard him repeat what he'd said about the project and his predecessor.

Ellie looked at Chuck and saw that he wasn't ready to talk yet, so she responded. "Las...Leslie. You're wrong about the Intersect being able to work in a human being's head. It's very rare for it to work, in fact we only know of one person who's managed to load and use it without terrible side effects, and for most who tried it was indeed just as you said, but it wasn't an impossible idea, just one that could only work with the right subjects. You see Chuck currently has the Intersect in his head, your Intersect in fact, and he is able to use it in the way that it was intended. And your predecessor, Orion? He's Chuck's and my father. He got away from what were probably the same people as you did back in ninety two."

Leslie couldn't believe this, and it took Chuck bringing up the information to answer his prompts for nearly twenty minutes before he finally accepted what he was hearing, that Chuck had what he'd been working on for the last ten years in his head and it did actually work. He was so tied up with trying to disprove the possibility that the Intersect worked that he missed the looks and head shakes that the others were sharing.

Even though he heard what Ellie said about the Intersect, he hadn't registered what she'd inadvertently admitted, that his work had in fact destroyed god knows how many test subjects. Part of what stopped him from making the connection was the fact that he'd never known that the testing was going on. As a naive young man, he'd believed that they'd listened to him when he told them that the Intersect program was too dangerous to test on people until he'd worked out some way to make it more efficient and reduce the size of the image that had to be loaded.

Of course, what they'd done was take the most likely of the test candidates that the off the books recruiters they'd planted in the most likely universities like Stanford had identified and tested the latest intersect version on them whenever Laszlo advised that he'd made any headway on the issues. Afterwards, the failed test subjects had been disposed of as victims of car accidents, robberies, home invasions, drug overdoses or whatever.

That bastard Larkin had just been lucky that he'd been regarded as the prime Intersect agent candidate, because they'd been saving him for when they were sure that the Intersect was working the way it was supposed to. That was exactly what he'd been shooting for when he blackmailed Fleming into helping him frame Chuck to get rid of him, because Fleming had told him about the ultimate plan for the Omaha Project, to create a super agent who had the government's secrets in his head.

When Fleming told him about how this Intersect agent would get everything he wanted because he would make every other agent obsolete, he'd groomed any female students that Fleming wanted but couldn't trap with his grades for favours scam for him, to make him more amenable to his demands. Then, when Chuck got his nearly perfect score in the Omaha Project subliminal imaging tests, he'd used the evidence he had on Fleming to blackmail him into helping him frame Chuck and swap their test scores for the Omaha Project. He'd also been manipulating others to improve his ratings for most of his agent's training, so on paper he was shaping up to be a great agent, as well as being the most suitable to take the Intersect upload.

His original plan when he stole the Intersect files from the Intersect facility was to load the Intersect after he'd destroyed the facility where the every other evidence of the Intersect was (not knowing that it was being developed on the other side of the country). In his mind that would make him the only one who'd ever have the Intersect then, so he could demand whatever he wanted. The first thing he was going to do was get Sarah Walker assigned back to him and teach her that _no-one_ rejected him!

Casey had ruined his plans by shooting him, but he'd always carried Chuck's details with him in case he needed a fall guy, so as he laid there, dying, he decided to stick it to him one last time and sent the Intersect files to him. His reasoning was that, even if Chuck could handle the Intersect without the specific agent's training that it was meant to work with, as soon as they traced the files to him he'd be arrested and spend the rest of his life buried in some black site, so one way or another he'd still destroy him. That was why Larkin had died with a smile on his lips, as he was sure that he'd finally destroyed Chuck Bartowski.

Of course, Leslie knew nothing of this, none of them knew about Larkin, but the point was that they had to keep him from finding out about what happened to the test subjects. As soon as he was on the plane with Anna and Carina, Chuck contacted Dr Dreyfus and filled him in on their discussions about the Intersect. They both knew that the hardest part of this would be finding a way to prevent Stephen from letting it slip, because he and Leslie would both be living with Dr Dreyfus while they were working with them.

There was another element that had been introduced by Leslie's revelations though, if Dr Dreyfus could get Leslie back to a stable place, he could be Stephen's salvation. From what Leslie said, he was the one who'd been doing most of the Intersect development for the last ten years, so if anyone could find a way to fix or remove the Intersect in Stephen's head, and put a stop to his deterioration, it was Leslie.

While they were in Washington, Carina took a couple of days to catch up with her parents, so Anna hung out with Leslie and helped him settle in. They actually got quite close over the time they had together, so close that she took his V Card the night before she and Carina headed back to Los Angeles. When Dr Dreyfus heard about that, he was worried about how it would effect Leslie, but after observing him for a day or two, he asked her if she could keep in touch with Leslie, because she actually had the effect of settling him down and that helped him deal with the things he was dealing with.


	8. Competition

**While we're having fun with people's stories, why don't we try another one? I actually liked the Dr Dreyfus character, well I usually like Christopher Lloyd, but there was always a question in my mind about why he'd be trusted with the type of secrets he could learn from Chuck, let's play with that, shall we?**

 **Usual disclaimers for the Land of Litigation, no rights to any characters portrayed, this isn't the real world, and it ain't no Disney Princess story neither**.

When Carina and Anna returned to Los Angeles, the first thing Anna did was drag Chuck aside and demand to know who the hell Dr Dreyfus was. "What's the hell's going on Chuck? That man's an agent! Leslie needs help and he trusted you! _I_ trusted you! Why would you send him to an agent and tell him that you were helping him?"

Chuck pulled her into his arms and whispered in her ear. "He _was_ an agent, but he's also the best therapist I've ever met. We can't talk here, I'll get Sarah to book us out on a job and I'll tell you the story when we're away from government ears." She stopped struggling at that and nodded.

He kissed her on the top of the head and went to Sarah's desk to kiss her and whisper in her ear. "Can you book me and Anna out on a job please? She's worked out a few things about Doctor Dreyfus and I need to explain things to her."

She looked hard at him at that and he kissed her again. "I'll tell you tonight, I promise. She's worried about Leslie and I need to allay her fears."

Sarah grabbed him to pull him in for another kiss and then scribbled a note as she talked. "As much as I'd love to continue this, you have a job to do, you better take Anna as it sounds like a mess."

That got her another kiss and. "Thank you, I love you!" before he turned to call to Anna. "Anna, grab your gear, we've got a fun job to do."

* * *

Chuck started talking when they were at his favourite spot on the beach and he had a white noise generator going.

"OK yes, Uncle Leo was an agent, but he's also a fully qualified psychiatrist, the best I've ever known. I promise that we wouldn't have sent Leslie to anyone but the best…."

Anna cut him off when something registered. " _Uncle_ Leo? What else aren't you telling me Chuck?"

"He's part of the family, but he wasn't really one of the Spooks. Look, I need to go back to the start to explain this, OK?"

Anna nodded, unsure about where this was going.

"The ones who were in charge of the Omaha Project back when Mom got stuck with Volkoff weren't convinced that Hartley Winterbottom had really become Alexei Volkoff under the Agent-X program, so about three years after Mom was trapped over there, they sent another agent in, Uncle Leo. As I said, he was a fully qualified psychiatrist and he'd worked extensively with the FBI on profiling cases, so no-one was better qualified to determine whether Alexei Volkoff was real, or it was just Hartley playing the role."

"They didn't tell him anything about Volkoff's real origins, just that it was imperative that they get a good read on this new player had taken over the illicit weapons market. Uncle Leo went in and did his job, but he did it too well, as he'd confirmed the fact that this was a manufactured character, even though Volkoff truly believed that he was who they said he was."

"When he reported this back to the people who'd sent him in there, they panicked, because they couldn't afford to let anyone find out that they had in fact _created_ the world's most feared arms dealer, one who was indulging in continually escalating acts of violence and mayhem. Volkoff had risen to the top of the world's most wanted lists in less than a year because he was a psychopath who was growing ever more powerful and had stayed as public enemy number one ever since, so for anyone to find out that part of the CIA had actually created him would have been a disaster."

"They decided to use Volkoff's paranoia and violence to get rid of the problem, so they altered Uncle Leo's records to show that he was an assassin, and then tipped off Volkoff that the CIA had sent him in to kill him. It almost worked, as he was captured and tortured almost to death, but then they locked him up again as Volkoff wanted to use him to send a public message to the CIA and anyone who opposed him. Mom managed to get him out and hide him away with the help of some friends that she had there while Volkoff was preparing for the big show, but she couldn't get him out of Russia. The way that Volkoff was on her to find who had been involved in Uncle Leo's escape after she'd gotten him out meant that she couldn't be out of his sight for more than an hour without having him come looking for her."

"That was where Uncle Lang and Uncle Roan came into it, they created an assignment in Europe that would get them close enough to slip into Moscow, and Mom's friends got Uncle Leo out to the airstrip so that they picked him up and had their jet back in the air inside of ten minutes. Uncle Roan went back to finish the assignment in Europe and Uncle Lang brought Uncle Leo back to the States. Uncle Lang hid Uncle Leo in his apartment and he and Auntie Di organised for him to get the medical attention that he needed, then he flew back to Europe to wind up the assignment with Uncle Roan and come back."

"The thing was, the only way that Uncle Leo would ever be safe was if everyone believed that he was dead, because the people who sent him in there and set him up to be killed had powerful friends, so they'd make sure they finished the job if they ever found out that he'd survived. Mom's friends provided a body which was a close enough match to be accepted as his when it was found, half eaten and decomposing in the forests outside of Moscow a few weeks after they got him away. Mom had set things up to make it look like he'd managed to escape, so Volkoff accepted the story that he obviously hadn't been injured quite as severely as they'd believed and he managed to get out, but he didn't have the strength to fight off the wolves when they caught him in the forest. What we did to convince the CIA that Laszlo's body had been recovered and disposed of by the authorities in L.A. was a variation of what they did for Uncle Leo actually."

"The CIA took Volkoff's acceptance of the story as proof of Uncle Leo's death and wrote him off, then the family created him a new identity as Doctor Leo Dreyfus with his actual civilian qualifications, and he stayed with Uncle Lang as he recovered. Uncle Leo's recovery process was long and hard, because Volkoff's people had really damaged him, and the re-constructive surgery to address the damage they did to him was even more extensive because they also altered his appearance enough to make sure that no-one would recognise him. It was over a year before he was back to anything like full health, and he and Uncle Lang spent a lot of time together."

Chuck hesitated, but decided that she deserved the truth. "Have you ever wondered why Uncle Lang doesn't have a wife or family?"

Anna looked at him, confused about why he would ask that, and then her eyes widened as she realised what he was saying.

Chuck nodded. "Yeah, Uncle Lang has always stayed deep in the closet and from what he told me he started late and hadn't had many male partners, but in the early months Uncle Leo needed just about everything done for him and they got very close. Uncle Leo hadn't had any male partners before Uncle Lang, he hadn't been happy in the relationships he'd had with women, but he'd never stopped to consider why until he met Uncle Lang. They've been together since then."

"When Uncle Leo was back on his feet properly and ready to start his new life, they set him up with a home based practice and back story to say that he'd just moved to Washington after running practices in other cities. Uncle Lang sold his apartment and bought another one close to him. Uncle Leo's practice there has been very successful for over twelve years now."

"Dad came back two and a half years later and, well you've seen what he's like now so you can imagine what he was like before the ten years of therapy it took to get him to where he is. Dad's been staying and working with Uncle Leo ever since because that's the only thing that does him any good. I don't know what else I can tell you to convince you that we put Leslie with Uncle Leo because we believe that that's the best way we can help him."

Anna just stared at him for a few minutes and then shook her head. "Director Graham is _gay_? I would never have picked that. I've always pictured him as a man's man!" She broke off as Chuck grinned, struggling not to laugh. "What?"

"He _is_ a man's man, I just told you that!"

Anna burst out laughing at that, pushing him over. "You know what I mean you doof! And thanks, now that you've pointed it out, I won't be able to ever get that out of my head. I don't know how I've never made that connection before actually."

Chuck sobered up as he picked himself up off the sand. "So, are you more comfortable that we've sent Leslie to the person we believe can help him the most, or do you need something else to convince you?"

She shook her head. "No, you've convinced me, I just saw that he was an agent and didn't think that he could really be a psychiatrist as well. I guess that his being an agent at least means that he can protect them?"

Chuck nodded. "Yeah, Uncle Leo may not have been in Mom, Uncle Bry or Uncle Lang's league, but he was a capable agent and he can do a good job of protecting them. That house is as secure as they could make it too, and we've updated the security measures a few times, so Leslie will be safe there."

Anna threw her arms around him and kissed him on the cheek. "Thank you Chuck, I don't know why I'm so out of control, but I just need him to be alright."

He returned the gesture. "Maybe you've found the one you were looking for, have to you thought of that?"

She looked as though the thought of that terrified her, and he laughed as he smoothly rose to his feet, lifting her easily with one hand. Anna mumbled. "No! That can't be it. Can it?" half to herself as they headed back to the car.

When they walked into the office, Sarah looked a question at Chuck and he nodded with a smile. She held a hand out to him, pulling him in for a kiss and whispering a question. "If it went well, why is she looking so worried?"

He grinned. "Because when she said that she didn't know why she needed Leslie to be alright I pointed out that he may be her one, and that terrified her."

Sarah snorted, but slapped him on the chest. "Way to be a supportive friend Chuck!"

With that she waved at the phone, telling him to watch it, and went out to the break room to have a heart to heart with Anna.

* * *

Pasadena - June 2008

This time, it wasn't just Chuck who could see that Langston and Diane were worried about something when they briefed them on the new mission that the team had been flagged for. On the face of it, it shouldn't be anything to worry about, the part of the CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology which included the Intersect Project had rebuilt most of the Intersect computer in the nine months since Larkin blew the last one up. There was one part however, that they hadn't managed to re-create because Laszlo Mahnovski, their technology guru, had disappeared, he was actually dead according to the reports in Los Angeles.

The reason for this mission was that they'd gotten wind that the cipher, that one part that they were missing, had apparently been stolen from the wreckage of the last Intersect compute as it was being sold to this Fulcrum organisation that had turned so many CIA and FBI agents in Los Angeles. For some reason there was a separate oversight committee for the Intersect Project, and they had insisted that the best team be allocated to recover the cipher, which of course meant the Human Intersect team.

They got the relevant information and then Chuck and Sarah ducked out for lunch, which meant going home to use the really secure communications links in their room to call Uncle Lang and Auntie Di back and find out what they were so worried about. By the time they got home, Chuck had a pretty good idea of what it would be, because the Intersect had been providing a lot of information as he had been musing about this in the car, and from there it hadn't been hard to connect the dots.

He also had a good idea of how Sarah would react to the news he was sure they'd get, so he decided to let Uncle Lang and Auntie Di be the messengers who got shot for delivering the bad news. The news was no surprise, and nor was Sarah's reaction.

"As soon as the new Intersect's operational, those people will be arguing that it's an unacceptable risk to have someone who's basically a civilian running around with all the nation's darkest secrets in his head, because he could be grabbed and used against the nation. The obvious solution that they'll put forward, if they haven't already, is that that risk needs to be eliminated in order to protect the nation."

Langston and Diane were really glad that they were on the other side of the country when they shared that news, because the look in Sarah's eye said that she desperately wanted to kill someone for even thinking about it! They discussed what their options were, but unfortunately they were quite limited. This oversight committee had insisted that the Intersect team recover the cipher because they were the best, and failing to do so would lead to all sorts of fallout, because they would be accused of wilfully disobeying their orders.

Langston, Diane, Bry and Chuck were calling in favours to get as many intelligence and special ops operatives who they could trust as possible assigned to L.A. operations, so that they'd have resources available to deal with what would be sent when the termination order was given. In addition to this, Langston and Diane met with the DNI and the President to get them on side to squash this. If, or rather when, the other side tried to send military or operative strike teams after Chuck, they'd be in for a nasty surprise.

In the meantime they were looking for the cipher, but Casey or Carina were accompanying Chuck on all jobs in case anyone tried to jump the gun, or tried to grab him so that they could finish him off more easily when the word came through. The hunt for the cipher was actually suspiciously easy, which set their alarms off. They were encountering resistance, but this resistance was amazingly amateur when compared to what they'd experienced with Fulcrum to date, and the people they came up against were nothing but second rate mercenaries and criminals.

Chuck hadn't identified any current or ex CIA or FBI agents like they normally found at Fulcrum sites at any of the sites they hit for this operation, so they reported their suspicions up the line, but the ones calling the shots ignored their warnings. Those people in Washington may have acted differently if they could have seen the feral grin which grew on Chuck's face when they told him, or rather Sarah and Casey, to stop wasting time and get that damned cipher. The grin was because they were now covered. They had gone on record about the level of resistance that they were encountering on this operation being uncommonly and suspiciously inept and they'd been told on record to ignore it. They recovered the cipher two days later and it was shipped off to the Intersect site in D.C. to be installed in the new Intersect computer.

* * *

Once that was done, they closed the office for a couple of days and settled down in the apartments to wait for the expected attack. They didn't have long to wait as Bry got a call from his Special Ops contacts to say that a Ranger team was on its way to hit their address with FBI agents, officially to wipe out a militant terrorist cell. Bry called in the people they'd organised while Diane and Langston went straight to the DNI to find out whether this strike had been authorised and try to get it called off.

The DNI and the President knew nothing of the strike, so the Osprey that had been kept in a ready state in Coronado ever since they first discussed this dusted off immediately with a SEAL platoon aboard, headed for Echo Park. The FBI HRT strike and CIA SOG teams who had been on call at the FBI's L.A. field office were also under way to the apartments.

The attackers didn't realise that they were actually telegraphing their move when they attempted to use the CIA's access into what they believed was the apartment complex's external surveillance to loop the feeds to cover their approach. According to what they saw they did loop the footage, but what they were looping was only the footage that was _allowed_ to leave the complex, as the core system wasn't accessible to anyone outside of the family. Chuck and Stephen had created a system which fed filtered recordings into the NSA's 'surveillance system' from the actual system, so those accessing the feeds from the NSA or CIA had no idea that they were seeing only what they were meant to. This of course meant that when they tried to loop the footage to cover their actions, all they did was set off alarms.

The alarms went off in both apartments, so they all geared up for a fight, Chuck, Sarah and Ellie in their apartment and Casey, Carina, Bry and Anna in Casey's apartment. At that point, the HRT and SOG teams were just over five minutes out with senior agents from the FBI's L.A. office, and the SEALs' Osprey was about ten minutes out.

The attackers first tried to get in via the windows, and they were shocked to find that the windows were bullet resistant enough to stand up to bursts of M4 fire when they couldn't jimmy the locks. Next they tried to break in the front door, which was no more successful, and nor was trying to use shaped charges to blow the door open. Unfortunately, the strength of these security measures just convinced the Rangers that what the rogue FBI agents were telling them about this being a terrorist stronghold was true, and they immediately upped the ante to heavy anti tank rockets. These rockets did manage to breach the apartment and Chuck and the others were getting ready to fight it out when the HRT and SOG guys arrived.

The HRT and SOG teams' arrival halted the Rangers because there was no way they were going up against legitimate FBI and CIA teams, especially after the senior FBI agents who'd come with them had identified themselves and demanded to see the authorisation for this raid.

The rogue FBI agents in charge of the raid were still trying to say that they weren't cleared to see their orders when the Osprey touched down in the street and the SEALs piled out. Any last doubts that the Rangers might have that they'd been duped into participating in a rogue operation disappeared at that and they laid down their weapons. The rogue agents were quickly disarmed, secured and left face down on the ground.

Only then did they come out of the apartments, and the more experienced Rangers recognised the figures exiting. They were whispering 'Mowgli', 'Raksha' and 'Shanti' as they saw Chuck, Ellie and Sarah picking their way out of the smoking wreckage of their apartment, but they froze when they spun to cover the door of the Casey's apartment as it opened and they saw who came out of there. They once again called out the names as they exited. 'Baloo', 'Pappu', 'Bagheera' and 'Rikki'.

The other Rangers' gave up when they heard those names, as did the rogue FBI agents, because they knew that they were seriously screwed. Any operation that came up against the type of people who'd responded to this had to be so far off the reservation that there would be little chance of surviving the investigation of their involvement. The Rangers gave up their weapons without being asked, as they knew that they'd been well and truly dropped in it now and any resistance would only make things worse.

The Rangers and the rogue FBI agents were carted off and Chuck and the others looked over what was left of the Bartowski apartment. It needed to be largely rebuilt because of the rocket attack, but they had a bigger issue to deal with, because they couldn't live there any more. Between the attack and having a V-22 Osprey landing in the street outside to disgorge a SEAL platoon, there would be no chance of them flying under the radar at that location any more, so they had to leave Echo Park.

* * *

In the middle of the Rangers and rogue agents being taken into custody Chuck suddenly froze, looking at the Osprey's main pilot. He asked a passing SEAL whether he knew the pilot's name, and when he didn't know more than 'Captain Noble', he asked to be introduced so that he could have a few words with him.

The Marine pilot had worked with SEALs before and he was actually in the middle of transferring to the DCS, so he wasn't surprised when he didn't get told any more than 'Commander' and 'Mowgli' for Chuck, but that was enough to impress him as he'd certainly heard of Mowgli before. He didn't know why Mowgli wanted his full name, rank and social security number, but he provided the details requested and agreed to make sure that he talked to him before he left. The look Mowgli gave him before he quickly walked off, pulling out a tablet computer, just confused him all the more.

As soon as Chuck walked away he used his accesses into the various systems to bring up all of Captain Noble's details, then he called Uncle Lang. "Uncle Lang, what were you doing with Special Agent Cloe Jones in the middle of nineteen seventy three?"

"Charlie, we're in the middle of a major crisis here, I don't have time to take a trip down memory lane!"

"Just answer the fucking question Uncle Lang!"

That stopped Langston, because he couldn't remember Charlie ever swearing at him before. "We were going out to dinner and parties and having a lot of sex."

"That's what I thought. I was just talking to a Marine pilot by the name of Captain Richard Noble Uncle Lang, he's your son."

"WHAT?"

"When I saw his face, I got a flash which showed a reference to you, so I talked to him to get his full name, rank and social security number and used that to get the other information about him including his birth certificate. He was born in February nineteen seventy four, his father is listed as Omar Jackson, which was the cover name you were using back then, and his mother is listed as Jackie Noble, which was Special Agent Cleopatra Jones' real name."

He glanced over at Captain Noble. "You'll have to get a DNA test to be sure but I see enough of you in him to be fairly confident that his mother was being honest on his birth certificate. Congratulations Uncle Lang, you're a Daddy. Look, I know we've both got things that we need to be doing right now, but I thought that you needed to know. Are you going to reach out to him?"

"If you believe he really is my son yes, of course!"

"That shouldn't be too difficult, he's in the middle of joining the DCS at the moment, so he'll be over there for a while."

"Thanks Charlie, I don't suppose you have his mother's contact details do you?"

"No….. She died over ten years ago Uncle Lang. I'm Sorry."

"Damn, she was one hell of a woman. Oh well, that will have to wait for now, we better get to sorting out this mess. Thanks Charlie."

"Talk to you later Uncle Lang." With that he hung up, but before he went back to the apartment he went to have another word with Captain Noble.

"Captain Noble, when you go to Washington to start with the DCS, expect to be contacted about your family."

That got him a suspicious look. "What do you mean by that Commander? I don't have any family, my mother died back in ninety five and she was all the family I ever had!"

"You maybe wrong about that Captain, just try to keep an open mind when you're contacted."

"You're being very cryptic Commander. Can't you tell me anything more than 'expect to be contacted'?"

"I'm afraid not Captain, but it won't be long before you're contacted and you'll be filled in then."

With that, they exchanged salutes and Chuck went back in.

The others fell in to help Chuck, Ellie and Sarah pack up what they needed and move out. Diane organised NSA movers to come in and strip everything else out of the apartment, along with contractors to return it to how it was before their 'renovations'. When the new place was ready, Casey and Carina would move out and their apartment would be returned to its previous state as well.

* * *

While this was going on, on the other side of the country, those directing the Intersect project were preparing to imprint six Intersect Agent candidates with the last version of the Intersect that Mahnovski had made before he disappeared. This was what they'd been waiting for, because as soon as they had real agents with the Intersect to do the job they were supposed to, they'd be able get rid of the mess that had come from having that civilian Intersect who they couldn't get under their control.

They were quite pleased with themselves for their plan to wrap that matter up so neatly actually, because once their agents had the Intersect, they'd have access to the planted records which showed how Walker had gone over to Fulcrum and was planning on taking Bartowski to them, so they'd be able to use the story that Bartowski had been killed when they tried to stop that. If Casey caused trouble, it wouldn't be hard to plant evidence to say that he'd been secretly sleeping with Walker and she'd used that to turn him. Miller would be easily handled, everyone knew that she was in Walker's pocket so presenting a case that she was working with her wouldn't be difficult. The point that they'd have to be careful of was making sure that the events were aligned properly, so that their agents identified Walker as Fulcrum _before_ the order was given to take them out.

Some had argued against making Walker collateral damage like this, because after all she was the best there was, but they'd buckled when it was pointed out that that was why she had to go. If she was left alive, she'd just keep poking around until she found out what happened.

As soon as the Intersect upload was queued up in the system, the head of the Intersect Project went into the Intersect room with the prospective Intersect Agents to initiate the upload. He wouldn't bother himself with something like this normally of course, but this was a great moment in history, the beginning of a new era in Intelligence, and he was determined to have this moment for himself.

He told the agents to take off their sunglasses, wondering whether these idiots were really the best they could find? Then he turned back to the console and activated the upload, but when the message 'FULCRUM THANKS YOU.' flashed up on the screen, he only had time to get out "What the Fu…." before a massive power surge fried nearly everything in the building, causing fires to break out all over the facility. On the floor where the computer facilities and the Intersect Room were, absolutely everything was fried, including everyone in the Intersect and control rooms, even the guards outside the Intersect room had been electrocuted.

When the people behind this operation didn't get the expected reports about their new Intersect Agents, they tried to call the head of the project, and then their other people on the project when they couldn't reach him. They eventually got through to someone and heard what had happened to the Intersect computer, and their people in there. That made them try to call off that termination order on Bartowski and Walker to cover their tracks. They collectively shat themselves when they heard the response.

"What do you mean Sir? That order went out hours ago, the Vice President insisted that it be enacted as soon as he signed it."

They called their people in the CIA and FBI to find out whether the termination order had been carried out successfully, and they knew that they were in the shit when they were told that the Human Intersect was alive. The outcome of this would depend on who'd survived, who talked, and how much they knew, but this definitely wouldn't help their plans.

* * *

Given the fact that the Human Intersect was once again the primary Intersect resource and the Intersect was supposed to be a CIA project, Langston took control of the investigation into what had happened at the Intersect facility. Anyone who tried to evade his questions or demands for access quickly learnt why anyone who knew anything about him was afraid to cross Langston Graham.

In the Intersect Room, the only thing that was left to tell them anything was Fulcrum's message, which had been burnt into the console's screen when the systems fried, but Langston ordered the remains of the cipher to be pried out and given to him so that he could get his specialists to examine it. He also took the storage media they'd found with the remains of the technicians in the control room for the same reason.

Langston handed the remains of the cipher over to Stephen and Leslie to see whether they could recover anything from it, along with the storage media. They managed to get most of the code off the chips that hadn't been fried and sent it over to Jeff in L.A. to try and reverse engineer it, as he was the best for that.

When they went through the storage media, Leslie told him that this was the full intersect image, code and data, and that the code was the last version he'd produced for them before he escaped. He also examined the structure of the cipher and advised that it was a very close copy of the last operational cipher, so it had almost certainly been copied off the one that been in the last Intersect computer.

That was news that none of them wanted to hear, as it meant that the original cipher was almost certainly out there. If someone else had the designs for the Intersect computer, the cipher could be used to create an operational Intersect Computer, so they needed to locate and recover it before it could be used for that purpose.

While they were going through all of this, the NSA reported chatter that they'd picked up about an ex-KGB agent by the name of Sasha Banacheck who was supposed to be delivering the real cipher to Fulcrum in Los Angeles. The CIA's records showed that Banacheck was highly tolerant of torture and the only time anyone had ever managed to get anything significant out of her was when a CIA agent had managed to seduce it out of her.

Langston and Diane stopped the story at that point, and they were smirking at the screen so Chuck asked rather testily. "What's with the games? Did you find out who it was or not?"

Diane grinned, saying, "Yes, we did, it was Roan Montgomery!" When the laughter died down, Chuck asked when he was supposed to be arriving, and she said that he should be in later that day, so they settled down to try and locate Sasha Banacheck, to be ready to go when Uncle Roan was there to fill them in on her.

* * *

By then, Jeff had reverse engineered the code that Stephen and Leslie managed to extract from the chips on the cipher, and he reported that the majority of the code was focussed on locating and breaching any gateways into the SCADA and security systems from the computer network for the purpose of taking over the control and security systems to disable any alerts or alarms and trigger the power surge that had wiped everything at the facility. In fact much of the code looked as though it had been copied from one of their shit bombs.

Jeff had located a few hacker tags in the code, but didn't recognise any of them, so he presumed that they were minor players, probably just college students trying to make a bit of money. The childish message they put up on the screen seemed to support that idea. The fact that he didn't find anything remotely related to the Intersect in the code was a relief, but the original cipher could still contain the proper code, so they needed to recover it.

What they came up with when they pieced together what had happened was that the CIA's Intersect developments must have been sold to Fulcrum by significant members of the CIA's Intersect Project. Presumably Fulcrum was using what they got from them to develop their own intersect, so when their minions inside the Intersect Project reported that the CIA almost had its new Intersect computer operational, they'd decided to that the best way to get rid of the competition and make the Intersect a one horse race would be to engineer a catastrophic failure in the CIA's Intersect facility at a key moment, one which would wipe out the key personnel as well.

Fulcrum had apparently obtained the damaged cipher from the last Intersect computer and recovered the remains of a few of the team's shit bombs from Fulcrum facilities that they'd hit, so someone must have come up with the idea to use the shit bomb code to blow up the systems at the Intersect facility and wipe out the CIA's Intersect capability. A copy was made of the actual cipher device, they extracted what code they could from the shit bombs and they hired rogue coders to compile that code into a module which would execute when the cipher was activated. They must have been banking on anyone near the technology areas in the facility at the time being wiped out as well, and that was exactly what happened.

* * *

Downtown L.A. - July 2008

They located Banacheck in an L.A. hotel, and prepared for the mission while they waited for Roan to arrive, but Chuck was trying to work out how to broach the subject with Sarah until she snapped at him. "Stop looking at me like that and pussy footing around the issue! I get it, OK? You have to be the one who does this because Casey is apparently incapable of seducing anyone but Carina!"

She drew a breath to calm herself and then pulled him down for a kiss. "It's OK Chuck, I don't like it but it's part of the job. You've had to watch me working marks, so I guess it's my turn now. I know you won't go any further than you have to."

The look she gave him then was a tad threatening. "Just make sure that you don't have to go too far!"

He smiled at her and leant in for another kiss. "I promise!"

Roan arrived at that point and Chuck went over the background information on Banacheck with him, arranging for him to be in the van to answer any questions that may arise before Chuck and Sarah went home to get ready. When they got to the car warehouse, Sarah and Roan went in the van with Jeff and the others. At the hotel, Casey was already behind the bar and Sarah, Carina, Bry, Ellie and Anna would set up in the room above Banacheck's. Anna was playing a double role that night, she'd be part of the team going in, but she was hooked into the hotel's systems as technical support until then.

Chuck gave them time to get there and set up, then headed down to the hotel. When he, or rather Pierre DuPont, arrived in his SL 65 AMG, he threw the keys at the valet with a look that almost made the man wet himself, then headed for the bar. He ordered in fast French, and when Casey just looked blankly at him, threw a barrage of French curses at him, getting a low growl from Casey (who knew French just fine) and a laugh from Banacheck. He repeated his order slowly in English and snapped at him to hurry up. By the time Casey had the drink made, Banacheck was all over to Chuck, the fish was hooked.

With Roan feeding Chuck the cues on how to best push Banacheck's buttons, by the time they'd finished their first drink, she was panting to drag 'Pierre' off to her room, and he let her. As soon as the door closed on her bodyguards, Chuck put her out with a nerve strike, sticking her with a tranq dart to make sure she stayed that way and then called the others down. Anna quickly packed up the laptop she was using and then they came down in two groups to catch the guards from both sides, dragging them into the room to get them out of sight as soon as they were down.

It didn't take long for Chuck to flash on the cipher, given that it was in the big pendant that Banacheck was wearing around her neck, but they collected everything of her's in the rooms anyway, and went through the rest of the suite to make sure that she hadn't hidden anything else in there. When they were done, the others took Banacheck, her guards and everything they'd collected out via the rear stairs while Pierre sauntered out the front door _._ He stopped to chat up another woman right in front of the reception counter, and her date, to keep everyone's attention on him.

When they brought the SL 65 AMG up for him, the valet was shaking as he carefully checked it for any new scratches, and he breathed a sigh of relief when 'Pierre' grudgingly conceded that it was fine and threw him a decent tip. Chuck made a point of blasting out of there fast enough to make them all dive out of the way to ensure that they remembered that arrogant French bastard.

Over the next few days, things were fairly quiet, they delivered Banacheck to the airport to be taken back to D.C. with Roan for questioning. Her guards were processed by the FBI's L.A. office before being passed on to the police, as they were just hired thugs. Chuck extracted the code from the cipher for Jeff to reverse engineer and when he'd done so, they went over the code he'd come up with with Anna and sent a copy over to Stephen and Leslie to do the same. They all agreed after they'd gone through the code that there were too many gaps for the processes to complete properly as the chips on the original cipher had obviously been damaged in the explosion. With what code that could be extracted on their systems, Langston and Diane agreed the cipher was to be destroyed, so they recorded the process and sent copies of the video to them.

* * *

Washington - July 2008

Langston used the fact that the last cipher had been destroyed and the massive amounts of government funds that had been wasted on developing and recreating the Intersect computers only to have them destroyed _twice_ to have the Intersect Project dissolved. He also presented evidence that showed what had happened to every known Intersect subject except for Chuck as proof that the project had always been doomed to failure and to get anyone directly involved in covering up what had happened to those so called volunteers sent off to federal black sites.

The massive wastage of government funds and criminal actions in regard to the Intersect subjects also gave him and the DNI grounds to get the Intersect Oversight Committee disbanded, and have any remaining Intersect Project budgets allocated to the new Human Intersect Project, under his direct control. The only people retained from the Intersect Project were those who had been focussed on preparing the data encoding for the Human Intersect and as they didn't need special facilities or equipment for that, they were moved to Langley.

The DNI and the President also launched a full investigation into the unlawful termination order that had been issued on the Human Intersect. The President was shocked to find that it had been his Vice President who'd issued the order, but they were less surprised to find that the other signatures on the order were the politicians and generals who had made up the Intersect Oversight Committee.

The Vice President and other politicians were all impeached for their part in this, but someone was apparently still pulling strings, because they failed to get enough votes to indict them. The generals were a simpler matter to deal with, as their actions could be judged and punished under military law. There wasn't enough evidence to send more than two of them to prison though, so the rest could only be demoted to their two star permanent ranks and thrown out of the military.

Of the Rangers who had been involved in the strike, it was confirmed that only one of the lieutenants had been knowingly involved, and he was imprisoned. The other lieutenant had apparently been selected because he was too stupid to question the orders, but he had clearly failed in his duty to confirm that it was a lawful order and was thrown out of the Army as well. The rest of the soldiers got off with no more than a note on their records. The rogue FBI agents, of course, disappeared in the system, but they provided some useful intel.

* * *

While all of this was going on, they quickly locked in the plans for the new home of the Intersect team. The warehouse that they used to store the cars had a floor of offices and store rooms above the warehouse floor which could be converted into apartments, so it was an easy choice.

After seeing what the military attack had done to the Bartowski apartment _after_ it had been secured, the security designed for the warehouse was at a much higher level. The whole building was clad in multiple layers of armour, or high level armour glass for the window areas, and they also added active defence systems to the building, so it would be a fortress. All details had been very effectively redacted from the work orders, and when budget committees squawked about the cost of the exercise, they were told that it was necessary because of an unlawful military attack on an important facility on American soil which had almost succeeded, then the President used his override to shut down any discussions on the matter.

For the rest, the office floor was converted into half a dozen nice apartments, not extravagant but considerably nicer than what they'd had to put up with for their covers. They added quite a nice roof garden, the warehouse area was separated into a few segregated areas to allow them to hide most of the cars etc, and secure bunkers were added underneath the building.

 **A/N: Was watching Definitely Maybe (an old favourite)** **recently** **and I was reminded that this film had one of the all time best questions ever asked. When he'** **s** **trying to explain to his** **young** **daughter about how he came to be with her mother she looks at him and asks. "What's the boy word for slut?" because that's the point, there isn't one, but there should be.**

 **That was another thing that always amused me, when Rock Hudson died and it came out that he was gay, people kept saying that he couldn't be, because he was a 'man's man'. As soon as I heard that I thought 'Yep, that's what he was alright!' ;^)**

 **Personally I don't understand why people can't just live and let live, what business is it of anyone else if what's right for two consenting adults isn't what you or I want?**

 **NB: In the last couple of stories, I've been wanting to make Rick Noble part of the family, so with the back story that Langston and Leo both tried going through the motions of being normal before they accepted the way things were, I decided that this was the perfect opportunity. If anyone doesn't know who Cleopatra Jones was, look up the camp but fun 1973 movie of the same name, a 6' 2" black beauty who was a tough Federal Government Special Agent? Looks like Langston's type and the perfect mother for li'l Ricky to me ;^)**


	9. Bad Apples

**It's interesting to see the shared interests of Chuck fans, as from what I can see Firefly, Castle and Harry Potter are the most common shared series. Chuck explains Firefly and Castle is an obvious connection through Nathan, but HP seems unexplainable, other than the fact that the two who SHOULD be together from the start aren't there either. I'm not complaining, I like it too and love many of the stories, but it just seems a little strange.**

 **I'll be using up a few villains from totally pointless story arcs in this one.**

 **Thanks again to you few who are sticking with me on this little jaunt down the rabbit hole.**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed, and this isn't the real world or a Disney Princess story.**

Silver Lake – July 2008

The contractors that Diane brought in worked with their normal efficiency, with several teams working inside to convert the floor upstairs to apartments, split the warehouse area and build the bunkers while other teams were cladding the building with armour and installing the security and weapons systems. As a result, it only took about five weeks for the work to be completed to the point where they could move in.

As soon as they'd all moved out of Casey's apartment and Jeff's house, Diane got the contractors in there to remove all the extras that had been put in to cater for their needs. Ellie and Chuck had been together pretty much all of their lives, so it was going take a while for them to get used to not sharing a place, but Ellie's apartment was right next door, so they still saw each other all the time. The fact that neither Chuck or Sarah were even close to being able to cook anywhere near as good as Ellie pretty much guaranteed that.

Another advantage of the Warehouse was that, aside from Ellie, they were all a lot closer to work now, as the warehouse was only about a mile away from the HST office, and they had secure parking for the cars at night as well. All in all, they had a lot more comfortable life now.

Through this period, Langston also reached out to his son. They'd both wanted to know whether Chuck was right, so they'd taken the DNA tests as he'd suggested and the results were pretty conclusive. It would take Rick three to six months to get through his training, but Diane already had the plans in place to have him assigned to her team when he finished training. It was a foregone conclusion that he'd end up with the Human Intersect Team, or rather Intersect team as they were known now, when he got through.

Silver Lake – August 2008

They knew that things were about to go to shit when CIA Agent Justin Sullivan swaggered into the Hunter Security and Technology office and walked straight up to Sarah, looking her up and down like she was a piece of meat as he said. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you Agent Walker, come on, you're assisting me on an urgent mission tonight and I need to debrief you." That last was added with a suggestive look that was probably meant to be enticing.

Sarah looked at Chuck, who in turn shot a look at Casey. Casey gave a nod that only they could pick up and grabbed Sullivan to drag his struggling form out back to the break room. After a quick hug to help settle Sarah's nerves, she and Chuck followed them into the break room, as did Carina.

Sullivan was sprawled on the floor, working his arm as if he was trying to work out whether it was broken or not. Casey was standing over him and spoke when the others had entered the room. "Who the hell are you and what the hell do you think you're doing, coming in here and blowing Walker's cover like that?"

Seeing Sarah and Carina, Sullivan tried to project bravado in an attempt to make himself look more impressive. "This is a CIA operation that has nothing to do with you _Major_ , but you're going to pay for attacking me like that, you can bank on that!" Casey stepped forward to render an element of truth to what the tool had just said but Chuck stopped him.

"Major Casey, I know I'm just the newbie here, but shouldn't we be contacting the Director about this?"

They could see that the anger in the look Casey fixed him with at that wasn't totally feigned, but after about a minute he backed down and nodded, grabbing Sullivan's arm to wrench him to his feet. None of them said anything when he slapped Sullivan almost hard enough to take his head off to stop his loud complaints and shut him up while Carina hurried to go unlock the door and give them access to the base.

Casey dragged the half conscious agent down the stairs roughly enough to rip one of his shoes off, Chuck and Sarah looked at each other but didn't say a word. When they got to the bottom of the stairs and Casey had deposited Sullivan in a chair, Chuck shot a look at Carina and she nodded, taking Casey by the hand to lead him out to the holding cells so she could try to calm him down before they got Langston and Diane on the line.

Chuck caught Casey's eye when they came back and he nodded, looking a little embarrassed, Chuck nodded back to him and gave Carina a smile of thanks before he initiated the links to Langston and Diane.

Sarah smiled to herself as she watched her team, they'd been working together as a team for less than a year, but they could have entire conversations right in front of other people with looks and nods and no-one else had any idea what was going on.

* * *

When they came up, they took in the scene and Chuck's subtle nod to Langston to identify the man as CIA, so he took the lead. "What's going on here and who's this man?"

Chuck nodded to Casey so he responded. "This man just walked into the cover office upstairs and walked straight up to Walker, openly addressing her as _Agent_ Walker and talking about a mission Sir. Carmichael flagged him as a supposedly friendly agent to me so I dragged him straight out back to the break room in an attempt to prevent him from compromising our cover with the civilian employees any more than he already had."

Langston made a show of looking at Sarah and asking. "Do you know this agent, Agent Walker?"

"No Sir, I've never seen, or as far as I know talked to him, before in my life. While he openly addressed me as Agent Walker as Major Casey said, he has not identified himself to us as yet."

That was Langston's cue to look at the dishevelled man in the chair and ask. "What do you have to say for yourself Agent….."

When he didn't answer for over a minute, Chuck piped up. "Sullivan Sir, CIA Agent Justin Sullivan. He told Agent Walker that they have an urgent mission to complete, but while he's listed as currently working undercover with Fulcrum, according to his records he's not attached to any unit that's authorised to operate on U.S. Soil."

Langston kept Sullivan pinned to the chair with a look that promised dire consequences as he responded. "Thank you Mister Carmichael, I'm glad to see that we can still rely on the NSA's cooperation even though my own agents apparently don't see any need to answer me."

"Explain yourself Sullivan! Who do you report to, what are you doing there and what did you think you were doing, waltzing in there like that and compromising the covers of Agent Walker and the entire operation?"

Faced with the very pissed off Director of the CIA, Sullivan's confidence was dashed and he couldn't say a word. Eventually, Langston looked at Casey suspiciously and barked. "Is he able to talk? He looks like he's gone three rounds with someone like you actually Major, what happened there?"

"I did slap him Sir, once, he kept shouting about information that would of compromised our cover if the civilian employees heard it and it was the only way to stop him."

Langston looked at Sarah with a raised eyebrow, his question obvious. "Yes Sir, that was exactly what happened, Sullivan was mouthing off very loudly and Major Casey hit him _once_ with an open hand, no more. I must admit that I had to hit him as well to control him as he was becoming difficult while we were setting up the link Sir, but I didn't do any more than Major Casey did."

Chuck could see how both Uncle Lang and Auntie Di were struggling not to burst out laughing at that, but most wouldn't have picked it, even Casey missed it because he was still on edge. Eventually Langston got himself under control and nodded. "Sullivan, I expect a response. I won't ask you again!"

Casey took a step towards him and the man looked up at him in fear, Langston held up a hand to make Casey stay back and Sullivan blurted out. "With all due respect, I can't discuss this with these other people present Sir."

"You obviously had no compunctions against talking before Sullivan and for your information the General and everyone in that room are all cleared far higher than you'll ever be. More to the point, that wasn't a request, it was an order, now talk!"

Sullivan looked around and reluctantly started talking "I was sent here by Assistant Deputy Director Kieran Ryker Sir, the mission is to recover a chip with sensitive information that was stolen from a CIA facility. The information on the chip is reportedly being decrypted here in L.A. and there's a function at the location tonight. I wasn't aware that there were any civilians here Sir, I thought that this was just a CIA Agency cover business."

Langston looked at Chuck. "Do you think you can to get this ADD Ryker on the line for me Mister Carmichael?"

Chuck nodded. "I'll see what I can do sir."

* * *

He grabbed a keyboard and within five minutes a third window popped up. The man on screen jumped and snarled. "Who the hell are you? When I find you I'll…."

At that moment Chuck spliced the link into the video conference properly and Langston leaned forward menacingly. "You'll do _what,_ Ryker?" Ryker promptly shut up, wondering what the hell he'd been dropped in while Langston nodded to the bunker screen. "Thank you Mister Carmichael."

"Ryker, a major operation in Los Angeles was just almost compromised by this bumbling idiot waltzing in and mouthing off about Agent Walker and missions without checking the status of the people in the room and he says you sent him there. You have five minutes to explain and it better be good!"

Langston had a window pop up from Chuck with Ryker's details and current location and he nodded to say that he'd received it. He silently thanked Jack and Emma for forcing him to learn to touch type all those years ago as he forwarded all the details to his assistant with an order to get his personal protective detail to go and collect the man from his office immediately without his eyes leaving the screen. The reason he was sending his personal protective detail was that they and his assistant were all part of the Spook family and the family were the only people in the CIA that he trusted.

Ryker was waffling on and avoiding the question so Langston cut him off. "What part of explain and make it good didn't you understand Ryker? You sent an obviously questionable agent into a highly sensitive operation without any authority to do so. Where did your orders come from and what's on that chip that they're supposed to be recovering?"

Ryker looked worried. "I can't discuss that in front of these people Sir."

Langston looked as though he was about to blow. "How did you idiots get into the CIA? As I just explained to that fool, everyone on this call except for that idiot _you_ sent into our operation is cleared far higher than you ever will be, so start talking!"

It was obvious that Ryker didn't want to answer, but like many of his ilk he had enough rat cunning to grasp the fact that he wouldn't be able to worm his way out of this, so he gave up the people he was working for in an attempt to save his own neck. "The order came from the oversight committee Sir…." He hesitated then, as even he could see the way Langston tensed up with rage at hearing 'oversight committee', but the looks he was getting prompted him to continue. "The chip was reported stolen two months ago from a CIA facility that was destroyed soon after. According to Nicholas Quinn, the head of the information unit who reported the theft to the oversight committee, it included the files on deep cover operatives' identities ..."

Diane cut across him with a question, in an attempt to distract him and prevent him from noting how Langston's face was now purpling with rage.

"What deep cover operatives? Are you talking about the CIA's National Clandestine Service Operatives, or what?"

"No Ma'am, it apparently includes the identities of all of the known deep cover operatives of the United States, its allies and its enemies."

At that moment, Langston's protective detail, who were all ex SOG operatives, burst into Ryker's office and one came around the desk to face the screen when Langston barked out. "Rogers!"

As soon as he was on screen, Langston said. "Get the information for this mission tonight sent to me immediately and then take Ryker into custody, he is to have absolutely no contact with anyone without my explicit approval, and go to Room one thirty two on level five and take Nicholas Quinn into custody as well, he is to be held under the same conditions!"

Rogers said "Yes, Sir!" and made Ryker send the information to the Director before he dragged him out of his chair to take him away.

Langston forwarded the information on to Chuck as soon as he got it, then sagged in his chair and looked at the bunker screen. "Cut that link please Mister Carmichael."

Chuck said. "Yes, Sir." and jumped to comply.

Langston's expression grew angry again as he looked at Sullivan on the bunker screen. "Sullivan, you will report to the Deputy Director of the National Clandestine Service in D.C. by oh nine hundred tomorrow morning. If you are not there by then, a shoot to kill order will be issued on you as a national security risk. If you go anywhere near any of the locations or personnel associated with the operation there in L.A. again, the team is authorised to shoot to kill. If you ever say anything about the operation there to anyone you will be thrown into a black site until the day you die. Do you understand what I have just told you?"

Sullivan just stared at the screen in horror, not saying a word, until Langston snapped. "For fuck's sake! Agent Walker, would you do the honours please?"

Sarah said. "Yes. Sir!" crisply as she pulled her pistol from the back of the waist band of her trousers and chambered a round but Sullivan screamed. "Stop! Stop! I understand!"

Langston said. "Repeat your orders back to me." grimly.

"I must report to the DD NCS in D.C. by oh nine hundred tomorrow morning or a kill order will be issued on me. If I come anywhere near anything to do with this operation ever again they are authorised to kill me and if I ever say anything about them I'll disappear into a black site for the rest of my life!"

Langston nodded. "Major, can you get him out of there and escort him off the premises please? You don't need to be gentle, but remember that you aren't allowed to kill him unless he actually breaks the rules."

Casey's tone as he said. "Yes, Sir." was rather more surly than Sarah's, but he still scraped by within the bounds of being acceptably polite, if only just. With that he pulled Sullivan out of the chair and hustled him out of the room.

* * *

Langston tried to bring up a link to the DNI but he was shaking too much with rage to do it, so he bit out. "Diane, could you get the DNI linked in please?"

She nodded, saying. "Certainly Langston, but try to calm down." as she did so. The link was up by the time that Casey walked back into the room.

When the DNI was on the line, Langston struggled to remain civil as he asked. "Sir, just how many of those damned special purpose oversight committees are there?"

The DNI took in his barely contained rage and carefully asked. "What do you mean by that Langston?"

Langston went over what Ryker had told them in an attempt to save his neck, adding that the one who'd reported the chip stolen two months ago, Quinn, was the head of the Intersect Information Encoding team that had been retained to process information updates for the Human Intersect. Needless to say, he had never reported to Langston or the CIA that this critical information had been stolen. He finished by saying that both Ryker and Quinn had been taken into custody and were being held incommunicado awaiting questioning.

The DNI went white when he heard what was on that chip, as he'd been in the intelligence game for twenty five years and he had a good understanding of just how much damage would be done if that was leaked. He almost whispered. "Tell me that you're recovering that chip!"

Sarah went to stand behind Chuck, resting her hand on his shoulder and leaning in close as she read what was on the screen in front of him. Chuck waved at various windows on screen as he typed away and she answered the DNI without looking away from the screen. "Yes, Sir, Major Casey, Agent Miller, Mister Carmichael and I will all be attending the party as guests. We are bringing in other technical and tactical resources to provide support. Once we recover the chip, we'll go through the other resources on-site to ensure that no other copies of the data exist, and will also confirm that nothing has gone off-site."

She whispered something to Chuck and when he nodded she added. "That's all we have so far Sir, but we'll have everything ready in time for the party tonight."

The DNI slumped in relief at that. "Thank you Agent Walker, and you too Mister Bartowski. Director Graham, how soon will we know exactly what was on that chip?"

"I will have people questioning Quinn as soon as the relevant people are available Sir, they should be flying in tonight."

The potential catastrophe if this information got into the wrong hands was so dire that the DNI ignored the obviously illegal nature of the questioning that Langston had tacitly admitted would be going on. He resolved not to mention that to the President when he reported this to him, as he would be doing the second he got off this link. They would have to decide whether they needed to warn their agencies, and their allies, about this straight away, or whether they could afford to wait to see whether the team could recover the files in time.

The DNI just responded with. "Keep me in the loop and let me know the moment we have any further information on this." and with that, they wound up the video conference and the others helped Chuck prepare for the operation that night

Hollywood Hills – August 2008

When they started circulating at the function, which was actually a birthday party that Von Hayes, the one who Fulcrum had hired to break the encryption on the files, was throwing for himself at his mansion, Chuck and Sarah spent a while mingling and haltingly ramping up their displays of affection. The show that they were putting on was good enough to ensure that the other guests weren't at all surprised when they slipped away out of sight after they started nuzzling at each other, as they'd been projecting the image of a shy loving couple so well.

Between the four of them inside the function, they'd attached numerous remote access devices to the computer and security networks and out in the van, Anna and Jeff had been using granted by these to take over the house systems. They used this to ensure that Chuck and Sarah were effectively invisible to the security monitors as they headed for Von Hayes' office, and they talked them past any guards roaming the mansion as well.

They got into Von Hayes' office and safe without any trouble, but while they found quite a bit of incriminating material and large amounts of cash and bearer bonds, they couldn't find the chip. Chuck hacked his way into Von Hayes' systems and found that they were still a long way from breaking the encryption on the files, he confirmed that by verifying that everything he located on the systems relating to the files was still encrypted. That at least was a win, and with that they locked everything up again and went back to the party to find the chip, allowing themselves to be 'caught' making out near the party to explain where they'd been.

They were back at the party and were working their way closer to Von Hayes when Chuck snorted. Sarah just looked at him to ask what he'd discovered. As they were dancing cheek to cheek he spoke softly in her ear "Are you still as good a pick pocket as you were back when you were working with your father?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Because Von Hayes just waved his Lamborghini keys at some woman, obviously trying to impress her, and I flashed on the key fob while he was doing that, the chip that we're after is actually in the key fob. If I keep him occupied for long enough, do you think you can get his keys and either get the chip out of the key fob or remove the key fob without him noticing?"

"I can take the key fob and have his keys back in his pocket inside a few minutes, no problem, but getting the chip out would almost certainly take longer, I really have no idea how long that might take. Couldn't we just swap the key fob so he wouldn't notice?"

"Maybe, I don't have anything close to it, what you guys have?"

Over the next few minutes, Sarah, Carina and Casey all engineered situations to show him their key fobs and Chuck said "Carina, your's is pretty close to what he has, can you get it off the key ring and hand it off to Sarah when we bump into you please?"

"Sure, just give me a minute…." With that she dropped her clutch and got down to pick up everything, and the next time the two couples bumped into each other she handed the fob off to Sarah.

They went to wish Von Hayes happy birthday and Sarah bumped past him to grab something for them to eat while Chuck was doing so, slipping the keys back into his pocket as she kissed his cheek to distract him when she stole her husband away to have a nibble before they went back out on the dance floor.

They still needed to wipe out everything on the systems and ensure that he didn't have any other copies of the files anywhere else, but they were one big step closer to completing this mission.

Their relief was short lived though, as Jeff suddenly swore. "That douche from the CIA who barged into the office today, he's here!"

Just then, Anna cut in. "Don't worry about him, Von Hayes is leaving with some woman, and from his expression it's not for anything he's looking forward to."

Chuck asked "Where?"

"They're heading for that door over in the back corner." Chuck got a look at her and flashed on who she was. "She's Fulcrum, so she must be here to get the decrypted files. If we can grab her as well we might be able to get some useful information out of her."

Jeff added. "It looks like that CIA douche may have had the same idea, as he's just ducked back out through the foyer to cut them off."

Chuck nodded. "OK, we'll get behind him while Casey and Carina follow Von Hayes and the woman" and with that he and Sarah wafted across the dance floor and out through the foyer as quick as they could without attracting attention while Casey and Carina headed after the other pair.

They got to the rear hall just as the pair were coming down the hall. The Fulcrum agent was going off at Von Hayes about the fact that he'd said that he'd deliver the information to them two weeks ago, so what the hell was he doing throwing a party?

At that moment, Sullivan stepped out, pointing a pistol at him and saying. "Hold it right there Von Hayes, you're coming with me to get me that chip!"

The Fulcrum agent stepped out from behind Von Hayes and asked "What are you doing here Sullivan?"

He smirked at her "Juliette, what are _you_ doing here? Oh well, this just makes it better, because now I can bring in the chip, Von Hayes, _and_ a senior Fulcrum operative. This will make all those bastards see who the real spy is!"

She smirked back at him, saying "Oh yeah, they sure will Sullivan!" With that she whipped out the suppressed pistol that she'd been hiding and shot him right between the eyes. Von Hayes just stood there, frozen in fear, as she turned back to him, but Casey quickly came up behind her and knocked her out cold.

Chuck and Sarah ran up to them and Sarah quickly knelt down to check on Sullivan, but he was well and truly gone. While she was there she grabbed Sullivan's pistol, and the pistol that Juliette had dropped when Casey knocked her out as well, handing Juliette's pistol to Chuck as she stood up. Chuck pulled out the key fob that Sarah had slipped into his pocket after she'd lifted it off Von Hayes and showed it to him, asking whether there were any other copies of the files on this?

Von Hayes tried to say that he didn't know what they were talking about until Chuck pressed the still warm tip of the suppressor to his forehead right where Sullivan had been shot and repeated the question in a cold, hard voice. "Yes, yes, they're on my computer, I'll show you!"

Chuck shook his head "We know about them! Are there any other copies _other_ than what's on your computer at the moment?"

"No, they're the only copies, I swear!"

"What about backups, or off-site backups?"

"The backups are all in the storage silo or my safe, and nothing's gone off-site because I keep everything in-house for security."

Chuck called Bry and Ellie to come in and help and Casey and Bry carried Sullivan's body and the Fulcrum agent out to the van while Carina and Ellie escorted Von Hayes. Chuck and Sarah headed back to Von Hayes' office with the bags of weapons, ballistic vests and equipment that Bry and Ellie had brought in for them. As before, Anna and Jeff kept them from showing up on the security monitors and talked them past the guards.

Sarah opened and emptied the safe and desk into the bags while Chuck got into the computer, killing off all of the decryption processes and deleting anything on the system remotely related to the files before telling Anna and Jeff to disconnect from the systems and releasing a rather nasty version of malware onto the network to corrupt and destroy absolutely every file attached to any of the systems.

Casey came back in with a rather large bag of thermite charges as a comment from Sarah had made Chuck realise that as effective as their malware was at wiping out the files on the systems, it didn't make certain that nothing could be recovered from them, so when they'd finished in the office they headed to the computer room to deal with that. They tranqed the sysadmins, who were all running around in a tizzy as they tried to save the systems from the malware that Chuck had released and dragged them out of the computer room. Then they quickly went through and attached thermite charges to every processing and storage device in there, as well as the storage media.

Chuck gave an evil grin as he activated the remote detonator to turn over a million dollar's worth of state of the art computer processor and storage hardware and media into nothing more than worthless piles of metal and plastic slag, then they got out of there as quickly as they could. They didn't run into any resistance on the way out, and as soon as they were clear of the building, Anna destroyed the security systems to ensure that there was no real possibility of recovering any images of them from the security footage, what she did was much like what Chuck had done to the computer systems (minus the thermite charges).

Casey jumped into the van and it left straight away to deliver Von Hayes, the Fulcrum agent and Sullivan's body into the FBI's custody at their L.A. field office, while Chuck and Sarah headed back to the Warehouse in the stretch limo with Jeff. They had to laugh when they got there though, as Carina was checking out the Lamborghini (obviously Von Hayes') that she'd driven back in, obviously she hadn't been in the van as they'd thought when it left.

It didn't take much to get the story out of her because she was bursting to tell it. She'd gone to recover her key fob from his keys because it held some sentimental value for her, but when she saw the Lamborghini key she decided that it would be a shame to let such a nice car to go to waste. After checking into Von Hayes and finding out just how much dirty business he'd been involved in, she knew that there was little chance that he was ever going to be released from whatever federal black site he was sent to. What that meant was that anything he had would most likely be grabbed by any agency officials or politicians who enough pull to get what they wanted. It occurred to her at that point that she just happened to know people who were quite capable of altering the records so that the car would show up as being her's, so she'd hopped in and driven it home. She grinned as she added that it was one sweet ride.

After they'd gotten changed, Chuck, Sarah, Casey and Carina all headed down to the bunker to contact Langston, Diane and the DNI to report on the outcome of the mission. Overall, everyone was happy with the way it went, as they'd recovered the chip and all the data before it could be leaked, as well as capturing a Fulcrum agent and Von Hayes, and they were hoping to extract quite a bit of information out of the two of them.

Sullivan getting himself killed obviously wasn't part of their plan, but he'd been told quite explicitly to stay the hell away from them and get to Washington for the meeting with the Deputy Director of the NCS the next morning, so he wasn't supposed to be there at all. He'd obviously thought that grabbing that chip before them would give him what he needed to buy his way out of trouble and he went in without a plan or any real hope of pulling it off, so he only had himself to blame for what happened.

* * *

They thought about what Carina had said about Von Hayes' Lamborghini and conceded that she had a point, as most of what was seized would most probably just go to line some fat cat's pockets. With that in mind, they went through the records and paperwork they took from him to see what else he had that they could use. It wasn't difficult for them to make most of his funds and liquid assets disappear, and they could use that to fund their operations for quite a while.

The only hard asset that they bothered taking over was Von Hayes' jet. He'd had a Gulfstream G550 that would be quite useful for the team's operations, so they fabricated all the records needed to shuffle it through numerous changes of ownership over the last five years, half of which went nowhere. The Global Financial Crisis actually helped in this, as many companies had been muddying the waters in an attempt to hide their assets and prevent them being seized when the company got into trouble, so their changes to the plane's records just disappeared into the morass of similar changes. Changes to the livery and identification numbers cut any last ties between the jet and Von Hayes.

The GFC also made it possible for them to take over the lease of a suitable hangar at Bob Hope Airport quite cheaply, so they were able to keep a plane with intercontinental range which was faster than most airliners just fifteen to twenty minutes away, that came in quite handy sometimes. One of the things that had motivated Chuck to take over the G550 was that it could easily fly L.A. to Moscow non-stop in under twelve hours, so if something happened with his mother, they'd have a much better chance of getting there to help her in time with it.

More generally, having their own plane with these capabilities made it far easier for them to fly under the radar with their _other_ special ops and intelligence engagements, as it had been difficult to cover up the arrangements needed to get the government or private charter planes that they'd had to use previously.

If they'd had the jet back when Kim had that trouble in Paris they could have helped Bry save her when she was taken by white slavers on that trip that her mother had tricked him into letting her go on. As it was, their government duties had made them too visible to acquire a plane and fly over there to help him, so all they could do was provide remote assistance. Associates through the Spooks did provide him with some local assistance, but they were frustrated that they couldn't have been there for Bry and Kim when they needed them.

* * *

The questioning of Ryker and Quinn gleaned quite a lot of information, not the least of which being the background into just how many of those 'oversight committees' had been salted throughout the system by the powers that be to enable the power mongers to play their games under the radar. As far as Ryker and Quinn themselves went though, they were rather different animals.

Ryker was just a corrupt ex agent who was pandering to anyone rich and powerful in an attempt to milk what he could from the contacts he made. Quinn was a different kettle of fish, he was an intelligent and unbalanced man with an axe to grind, and that made him dangerous.

Back in the early days of the Omaha Project, Quinn had hitched his wagon to the project because he had the same vision of being a godlike super agent with the Intersect as Larkin had, in fact Quinn was the one who came up with that image and sold the others on it.

Quinn had been bitterly disappointed when the trials of Kowalski's early Intersect versions had been such catastrophic failures. He was even more disappointed when Stephen went off the reservation and then disappeared, but he'd stuck with the project because he was certain that someone else would come along to take up where Stephen Kowalski left off and sure enough, after umpteen false starts the boy genius, Laszlo Mahnovski came along five years later. Mahnovski didn't come up with a working intersect overnight, in fact the first year or two were little more than aimless experimentation, but he'd found his direction and the test subjects' reactions to his Intersect code became progressively better over time.

Quinn wasn't directly involved with the Intersect code himself, as he'd decided as he watched the repeated purges of the coding teams in the years between Kowalski and Mahnovski that if he wanted to be there to get his hands on the Intersect when it was finally safe enough to be workable then he'd need to be in a safer field. That was why he moved to the data preparation side of things, as the Intersect was nothing without the data. It took him four or five years to get everyone out of his way and take control of the data prep side, but he was well entrenched now, or at least he had been until this latest episode.

He'd decided to jump ship after Mahnovski disappeared as well, as the CIA had only managed to find two geniuses capable of progressing the Intersect in the thirty years that the project had been running and they weren't likely to find another one of that calibre. Quinn had known about Fulcrum paying off the key members of the Intersect Project to get all of their developments to use on the Fulcrum Intersect and decided to change teams to see whether they'd managed to advance the Intersect enough to make it usable when he gave up on the CIA's Intersect team.

With that, he'd prepared his buy in package for Fulcrum, the ultimate Intersect data package. It had been laughably easy to convince the idiots running the CIA's Intersect Project that they should give the new Intersect Agents far more and better intel than had been in the Intersect previously. They got him access to everything he wanted and he'd prepared an Intersect database that made what was in there before pale into insignificance.

To make sure that Fulcrum would have to give him what he wanted to get this mother lode of government secrets, he'd locked it down under multiple layers of strong encryption, so that even if they managed to crack one layer of encryption, they'd just find another, different layer of encryption underneath. Once he'd ensured that they couldn't get into it without his help, he'd leaked word about this treasure trove of intelligence and allowed it to be 'stolen' just before the cipher was recovered and the Intersect facility was destroyed, along with the head of the Intersect Project and most of the key people on the coding side of the Intersect. He'd considered getting out after that, but when Graham decided to retain the Human Intersect data preparation team after he scrapped the rest of the Intersect Project, he'd stayed on in hope that he could get something else useful to him.

Quinn had rejoiced at the Intersect facility 'disaster', because it made his buy in package all the more valuable, and he was just waiting to hear from Fulcrum. Then Graham's goons had grabbed him and it all went to shit. He was quite bright enough to know that as soon as they decided that they had everything of use from him he was finished, so he tried to resist as much as he could in hope that Fulcrum's people would get him out of there before that happened. If Fulcrum wanted that Intersect data, they'd have to get him out of here, and they'd have to give him everything else he wanted too, but it was so hard! Those bastards that Graham had working on him were terrifyingly efficient at pulling a man apart and making him want to tell them whatever they wanted just to make them STOP.

Langston's interrogators didn't get everything they wanted out of Nicholas Quinn, but he didn't get what he wanted either. The decades he'd spent living a decadent life, indulging in every pleasure that struck his fancy, had left his body incapable of withstanding the punishment of the interrogation that he was being put through and he died of a massive heart attack that rendered him impossible to revive. His body went into the incinerator with the rest of the trash.


	10. Father of the Bride

**As Effie would say. 'How embarrassment!' After reading over three quarters of a million words of delightful (to me anyway) HP fanfics, I got the answer to the question I asked last chapter. I can't believe how much I'd forgotten about the HP characters, and how alike the Chuck characters they are, none more so than the obnoxious, sleazy, shallow self centred idiot so called best friend. The theme of betrayal by authority figures and 'the greater good' is also quite similar. Ah, the things you forget in 5-10 years. It's just a pity that many of those great stories never got finished.**

 **Usual disclaimers, not rights to any characters portrayed and this is neither the real world or a Disney Princess Story.**

Sarah could see that something had been bothering Chuck from the time that Sullivan arrived and leered at her as he told her that she was with him for a mission, and it only got worse two weeks later when they managed to get remove all the layers of encryption on the files that Von Hayes had been trying to decrypt.

Between the fact that Von Hayes had managed to get through the first encryption layer, the interrogators having extracted the encryption keys for a few more layers from Quinn and the software that Chuck, Anna and Jeff had developed between them to break encryption being many times more effective than anything else known, they'd managed to do what Von Hayes couldn't and gained access to the Intersect database in two weeks. Chuck had made a snap decision then and loaded the new Intersect database without telling anyone as he knew what Sarah's and Ellie's, well all of their reactions, would have been if he had discussed the idea beforehand.

Once he'd loaded it, and recovered from the experience as it was many times bigger than what had been in the original Intersect database, he found that Quinn's ravings about what was in it were quite true as what they'd been calling 'all of the government's secrets' was nothing compared to what he had in his head now, and it also included what had been specifically omitted or redacted for various reasons from the original version. The problem was that Chuck had now seen picture and video evidence of what he'd been afraid of when he'd seen how Sullivan had behaved towards Sarah, and to a lesser degree Carina.

He'd seen how female agents were forced to put up with what male agents did when they were all over them 'for the cover', and how often male agents and the men behind them would engineer situations where sexual relations were 'necessary' to avoid blowing their covers, as well as references to how sometimes this was done as an 'incentive' to pick up the male agents' 'game' when their performance was dropping off. With this much proof that his fears were justified, Chuck was just about ready to blow.

A few days after he loaded Quinn's database, Sarah looked at Chuck's brooding face and grabbed his hand to drag him over to the chaise lounge in their bedroom, ordering him to. "Sit!" and. "Talk!" once he'd complied.

It took her a while to drag it out of him, and they were both in tears, pretty much equal parts upset and enraged, by the time he was done. The part that enraged Sarah the most was the fact that she'd been set up to screw Larkin and other bastards like him to 'pick up their game' so many times, all the more when she thought back and realised that Larkin at least had initiated that himself at times. She remembered the way he'd smirked as he started making more and more mistakes on a number of occasions.

When they'd composed themselves, they tried to come up with a way around this, the only sound way that they could think to do it was to get her and Carina (she kissed him again when he was the one who insisted that Carina had to be part of whatever solution they came up with), and by extension Casey, pulled out of the loop by having the DNI get the President to make the Intersect Project separate from the CIA and NSA, so that none of them were part of the normal chain of command at all and weren't answerable to the CIA or NSA. The problem with that was that it would take months at least to get something like that through, and she and Carina would always be at risk of someone like Ryker cutting orders of that nature for them without Langston being about to stop them in time.

Sarah needed to get her head together after that, so she decided to go see her mother. Chuck wanted to go with her but she pointed out that he had piles of work to do for HST, and said that she just needed some time alone with her Mama. That last was all it took to make him agree, as she knew it would be, but her point about the work was valid too.

She changed into casual clothes, grabbed the Porsche from the garage and headed to San Diego while Chuck went to work. Chuck took Carina aside and filled her in on what they'd discussed and their idea for a solution to the problem. Her situation was slightly different but no less disgusting, as she'd been more often used as payment to informants or incentive to get men to sell out the ones they were working for than incentive for DEA agents.

* * *

Carina was in the same state Sarah was by the time they finished, so Chuck got Casey to look after her. Meanwhile, Sarah was having a very interesting discussion with Emma in San Diego.

They were both in tears when Sarah told her what she'd gotten out of Chuck, but when she'd composed herself, Emma hit her with a bombshell. "Why aren't you doing what Mary did?"

Sarah was confused. "What? What are you talking about Mama?"

"That was the main reason Mary got married as soon as she found out that she was pregnant with Ellie. I don't know what they say now, but Mary spent time looking into the matter and discovered that the regulations back then prohibited married women from being forced to do any of that, or even forced to work with agents who they believed would try to force them to do something against their marital vows. The rules were a carry over from the fifties or sixties, but back then the sanctity of marriage was taken very seriously and being married meant that Mary could refuse to do anything or work with anyone she wasn't comfortable with on that basis."

Sarah was staring at her in shock and Emma chuckled. "What, did you think that Charlie got all of his brains from Stephen? His mother's a smart cookie too, you know!"

That got her caught in a bone crushing hug before Sarah grabbed her phone to call Chuck. While they were on the phone he brought up the regulations that Emma was talking about and they hadn't changed! Sarah was worrying about why Chuck had gone silent when she heard his hesitant words.

"This. This isn't how I wanted to do this, but it's too important and you mean too much to me to wait. Samantha Lisa Blake, Sarah Lisa Walker and any other name you choose to use, would you make me the happiest man in the world by agreeing to marry me and spend the rest of our lives together?"

It was Chuck's turn to worry about the silence on the other end of the line then until he heard her emotion choked voice. "Yes Charles Philip Kowalski, Charles Irving Bartowski, Charles Philip Carmichael and any other name you choose to use, nothing could make me happier than marrying you and spending the rest of our lives together!"

When heard Emma crying in the background, Chuck realised that he'd missed an important step. "I'm sorry Auntie Em, I was so tied up in this that I forgot to ask. Will you grant me the boon of giving me the blessing to marry your wonderful daughter, please?"

Emma laughed. "Yes, Charlie, nothing would make me happier than to finally have you as the son-in-law that I always wanted you to be, so you most certainly do have my blessing to marry my Sammie!"

She stepped away to give them a little privacy as they exchanged endearments, but Sarah raced out to throw her arms around her and kiss her as soon as she got off the phone. The rest of Sarah's visit was much happier as they excitedly talked about the wedding plans while they packed a bag for Emma.

Back in Silver Lake, Chuck called Carina and Casey in and showed them the regulations that Emma had told them about, and said that he and Sarah were getting married straight away. After accepting their excited congratulations (well Carina was excited anyway), he stepped out of his office to let them look through the regulations and decide what they were going to do in private.

When Casey called Bry to ask his blessing to marry his daughter, Bry was aghast and ashamed that he'd forgotten about what happened to female agents, and what Mary had done to address the problem. His guilt was compounded by the fact that he was the one who Mary had often asked to work with after that to forestall working with someone who was trying to get into her pants.

Needless to say Bry and Diane (as Casey called her as well), gave their blessings for him to marry their daughter and Carina agreed as enthusiastically as Sarah had. They were just as excited in the office as Sarah and Emma were in San Diego, and that was ramped up considerably when Sarah got back from San Diego with Emma.

Carina and Casey went along with Sarah and Chuck on the idea of going to Las Vegas to get married immediately to get it on record and protect the girls ASAP, then have the 'real' weddings later. Diane, Mary, Stephen and Langston were upset that they wouldn't be able to be there for the first weddings, but they understood the urgency, especially Mary and Diane.

The prospective brides and grooms collected their birth certificates and other requisite paperwork, and laughed about the fact that only name on the upcoming marriage licences which was being used by any of them was Chuck's _Charles Philip Carmichael_ identity that had been created when he was eleven. He had a marked dislike for _Charles Irving Bartowski_ and most of his _real_ identity was attached to Charles Carmichael, even his degrees from Stanford and Caltech were. He had no interest in hanging onto Charles Bartowski and had all but forgotten Charles Kowalski, so he was marrying Sarah as Charles Carmichael. There were no birth certificates for the Sarah Walker, Carina Miller or John Casey identities, so they were getting married under their real names, Samantha Lisa Blake, Brianna Mary Beckman and Alexander John Coburn.

Bry was there and they had everything ready, including their clothes, paperwork and rings, by the time that Sarah and Emma got there from San Diego, so as they already had the jet prepped and waiting at the airport they headed straight there. In Las Vegas, they had no trouble picking up the paperwork they needed for the marriage licenses as it had all been pre-arranged, and they arrived en-mass at the wedding venue less than an hour after landing.

All of them in L.A. and Emma were there, so Bry stood in as the father of the bride for both of them. The two couples witnessed each other's marriage licenses, and Ellie, Emma and Anna's excitement livened up the ceremonies. They went to the FBI's Las Vegas field office before they headed back so that they could use their secure mail service to send copies of the two marriage licenses off to both Langston and Diane, to ensure that the details of the marriages were officially recorded on their CIA and NSA records ASAP.

Back in Los Angeles, the Carmichaels and the Coburns didn't really feel any different, but they did break into silly grins whenever they stopped to realise that they were _married_.

The discussion on the plane when Chuck filled the others in on what he'd set in play with Langston and Diane had been interesting, as they hadn't realised that he'd already put enough of a case together for them to take it to the DNI to get things moving. He also hadn't mentioned another part of the plan, the one to get Sarah and Carina promoted to Senior Field Agents, and Casey promoted to the DCS/NSA equivalent of Chief Field Agent, so that they'd have the authority to overrule anyone who they were forced to work with.

When they'd settled down, Sarah made sure that he understood that he should have gotten their agreement _before_ he acted on this, even if she in particular appreciated what he'd done. Watching Casey and Carina out of the corner of his eye, Chuck could see that they were pissed as well, but were happy to defer to Sarah as they knew that her going off at him would have far more effect than anything they might do.

Chuck apologised, to all of them, and they could see that he was explaining rather than making excuses when he said that he was just used to acting quickly to address problems. As he said that it was normally only Ellie and Anna who were effected and they were prepared to accept his lead on anything of this nature, Sarah, Casey and Carina were building the mental image of why this operation had worked so well for the past thirteen or fourteen years. Chuck would identify a problem and put together and execute the plan to address the problem quickly and decisively before it had a chance to grow. They didn't like being handled, but they could see that he was just sticking to his standard operational processes that worked so effectively. Sarah was the first to forgive him, of course, but Casey and Carina weren't far behind, of course Sarah made it quite clear to him that from now on it was going to be talk first and act on agreements.

Things settled down in the weeks after the weddings, though there was a surprise when the new credentials came in, because Chuck and Ellie's Carmichael and Zaleska CIA and FBI identities were also given promotions, as Charles Carmichael was now a CIA Chief Special Agent and FBI Special Agent in Charge, and Eleonora Zaleska was now a Senior Special Agent in both agencies. Sarah and the others had a good laugh when Chuck contacted Langston and Diane to rip into them about why they'd done this without consulting him. The hypocrisy of this clicked with him just seconds before Sarah leant in to whisper in his ear. "Doesn't feel nice, does it?"

After he'd gone red face and apologised again, Langston explained that this wasn't about his wife and the others getting payback, smirking as he added. "But that certainly helped us get their cooperation." It was primarily to give them an ace in the hole, as his point was valid, until they got the Intersect team outside of the normal chain of command, they had the risk of others coming in and interfering with them. The changes to his ranks were to ensure that they had something to trump anyone claiming authority above Sarah and Carina's Senior Field Agent or Casey's Chief Field Agent ranks. Chuck's new CIA rank had the highest authority of anyone engaged in operations, so if all else failed they could use that to ensure that they maintained control of the operation.

* * *

A few weeks after that, everything went to shit, because Sarah got a call from her father. The non-verbal communication of the team worked brilliantly and everyone went silent the moment she signalled and put the phone on speaker. "How did you get my number Dad?"

"Is that any way to talk to your dear old Dad after everything I've done for you Darlin'?"

"You must be delusional _Dad_ , if you have any recollection of doing anything _for_ me, but you haven't answered my question. How. Did. You. Get. My Number?"

She was just about ready to explode, and the only thing holding her back was Chuck rubbing her shoulders to sooth her. She looked up to give him a grateful smile and he leant down to kiss her softly as her father launched into a tirade.

"That's no way to talk to your father! I raised you better than that!"

There was no holding her back at that.

"Raised me? _Raised_ me? You never raised me! You dragged me around the cesspits of America and Europe for eight years to use me in your fucking cons! Do I have to remind you how many times you just went off and left me so other people had to look after me? I've had it, I don't care who gave you my number, lose it and never call me again. Goodbye _Dad_!"

"No! Wait! I have to talk to you Darlin'. Please?"

"Then tell me who gave you my fucking number!"

"Someone came and saw me before I was released, he gave it to me."

"What part of who don't you fucking understand? You have ten seconds to answer me or I'll never talk to you again!"

"I don't know who he is, OK? It was the Feeb who arrested me back in ninety eight, he never gave me his name."

"So this mysterious federal agent just turned up on the day you released to give you my current number that doesn't appear on any lists for what reason? Because he's a nice guy?"

"He said that it was so I could talk to you, seeing as I wasn't allowed to see you, or anyone else I knew from the con game..."

She shot back a sarcastic gibe. "Well that was nice of him, wasn't it?…. Wait, where are you?"

He gave up the pretence as it was obvious that she'd worked it out. "Los Angeles. I have to see you Darlin' I have to talk to you face to face."

"Describe him."

"What difference does that make? I have to see…."

"Describe him!"

"White, under six foot, heavyset, balding, Mediterranean background, about my age…."

Sarah reached out to mute her phone as she looked up at Chuck. "That's the man who caught me when I tried to grab the emergency stash and run."

Chuck nodded musingly as he kept rubbing her shoulders. "They're obviously trying to make you reconnect with your father for some reason…." He cut off his reply when she held up a finger and then took her phone off mute.

"So he told you my number and where to find me, what else did he tell you?"

"What are you talking about Darlin'? He just said that I couldn't come here because you were here, but I have to see you..."

"I don't have time for your shit, don't ever call me again…."

"Wait! Stop! OK yes, he told me you were working some rich mark there so I thought you may be able to help me get on my feet again, but I have to see you Darlin', I have to make things right with you."

She looked up at Chuck again and saw from his look that this was up to her, and he'd support her in whatever she wanted to do. She kissed the hand on her shoulder and laid her cheek on it for a moment with a feeling of contentment rising up in her, he knew what she needed and came through for her. Unfortunately their moment was interrupted by her father's voice.

"Darlin'? Are you still there Darlin'?"

"Yes, I'm here. When do you want to see me?"

"How about dinner tonight? Seven at the Marriot?"

She looked up at Chuck, knowing his answer but needing to see it. He nodded with a smile.

"Alright, but my partner's coming with me."

"No Darlin', I need to see you alone…."

"That wasn't a request, it was my terms…." She paused as Chuck suddenly grabbed a pen and scribbled 'Charlie Frost' on the paper in front of her. She grinned up at him and continued.

"It's both of us or neither!"

"I suppose I'll have to let you bring him then, but I do need to talk to you in private Darlin', there are things we can't discuss in front of other people."

"Let me? What part of 'My Terms' didn't you understand? You know what, forget it! There's no way I'm going to leave Charlie hanging around just to talk to you."

"OK, I'll do it on your terms! I have to talk to you Darlin', so if that's what it takes I'll go along with it."

Against her better judgement, she agreed that they'd see him at the Marriot at seven, but he somehow thought that he'd gained the upper hand and tried his luck a little more.

"So, is this guy the mark they told me about?"

Even her clueless father didn't miss the chill in her tone when she replied. "No! He's the one who makes me happy! I left the con game behind when I got away from you _Dad…_. You know what? Forget it! I've changed my mind, talking to you will just aggravate me and you'll keep making cheap shots at Charlie. Don't call me again Dad, and it would be better for you if you got out of L.A. before I saw you."

"No Darlin'! I promise I won't make any shots at your guy but I have to talk to you! Please?"

Sarah looked up at Chuck as she replied. "Alright, we'll come, but we're leaving the second you try any thing and Dad? You're paying! Charlie will insist on paying for us at least but you won't let him, do you understand?"

"Yes, yes, I'm paying for dinner and I promise to behave, OK?"

She just said. "We'll see you at seven." and hung up.

Sarah pulled Chuck down for a kiss and then groaned. "That idiot's convinced that you're the rich mark he was told about and he's going to try to get money out of you. He'll probably try to find some way to get you alone and sell you on investing in something for my sake, the bastard!"

She shot Chuck a suspicious look when he smirked. "What are you up to Chuck?"

"If he thinks you've got a rich mark here, why don't we put on a good show to make him more desperate to get a bite of the pie? Wouldn't that make it hurt more when we give him a nudge?"

Sarah was grinning by the time he finished. "That's devious and despicable and brilliant! I love it! And I love you."

She pulled him down for another kiss and then he turned to look at Carina. "May we borrow your Lamborghini tonight?"

Carina grinned. "If hubby and I can come and watch, sure. Sarah told me what that bastard put her through and I want to see him get what's coming to him."

Chuck looked at Sarah and she nodded with a grin, then he turned more serious. "It's obvious what Uncle Joe's after, but we don't know what the plan of the people behind him is. I seriously doubt that they bothered sending him your way so they could get at him. I don't know what they're trying to gain from this but…."

Sarah's nod this time was grim. "Yeah, they have to be after me. They're probably trying to do what they did at the start again, use threats against him and Mama to get me to toe the line. Mama was always the main leverage, but as they don't have her under their control they need to use him as the evidence to convince me. I've given up on him, so I dare say that they're hoping that he can somehow manage to bond with me to make him a worthwhile hostage."

Chuck nodded. "Yeah, that was what I was thinking, though not in that much detail, and I didn't know about them using Auntie Em for leverage as well."

That brought a worried look to Sarah's face. "Is Mama safe?"

He put his arms around her. "She should be, but just to be safe, why don't we get her to come up here for a while? She can stay with Ellie or Uncle Bry"

* * *

The look on his face when he said that last made her pull back a little to look him in the eye. "Explain!"

"Auntie Em and Uncle Bry have been close for quite a while, didn't you see the way they were at the weddings?"

"Well I was a little distracted by the fact that I was finally getting to marry you, but now that you mention it yes, they were very comfortable together. But why aren't they together then?"

"They're old fashioned, Uncle Bry wouldn't make a move on Auntie Em when she was married to your father, and by the time she got a divorce he'd gotten Kim's mother pregnant and married her. Now he's divorced too, but he's staying single to be there for Kim because he's bought into her mother's crap about him abandoning them. It's stupid really, Kim loves Auntie Em and nothing would make her happier than to have her as a stepmother, but Uncle Bry's still hung up on the idea."

"That's crazy! I'm definitely going to have to have a talk with those two, but in the meantime, that's a wonderful idea and I'll call her to come up now. Thank you." She kissed him again, then grabbed her phone.

Halfway through the phone call, she suddenly stopped and turned to look deep into Chuck's eyes. What she saw there was obvious from her response to her mother. "It's OK Mama, I'm pretty sure that Chuck has factored that into his plans for tonight, just get your things together and get up here as soon as you can. Plan on staying as long as it takes for us to resolve this, OK?"

She smiled at what her mother said and gave their traditional response "Love you more! I'll see you when you get here, bye Mama." After she'd hung up, without taking her eyes off Chuck, she spoke again.

"Are there any other angles to this that need to be considered Chuck?"

He nodded. "Yes, this dinner could be a set up to make it easier for whoever it is your father is working for to grab you with your defences down. I was planning on asking Carina and Casey to be there before Carina insisted on it, and we'll have the team downstairs and an FBI strike team on standby."

Anna cut in. "But surely your father wouldn't set you up for something like that?"

She was chilled by the grim looks on Sarah and Carina's faces as they nodded and Carina responded, the things that Sarah had told her about her upbringing clear in her memory. "Oh yes he would! He only took her with him because having an adorable little girl like her around really helped to distract the marks, and what he used her for…. He wouldn't think twice about selling her out to whatever fate awaited her if he stood to gain from it."

Chuck saw from the look in Sarah's eye that they had a lot to talk about, so after he laid out the plan for that night, he took her back to the Warehouse to have that talk. By the time that Emma got there, he was ready to kill Uncle Joe because the only thing that had saved Sammie from more sexual abuse than Carina had had to endure was the training that his mother and others had given her to protect herself, and the situations where she was at risk had all been directly or indirectly because of her father. When Emma got there, she took one look at Chuck and sent him down to the bunkers to work off his rage while she talked to her daughter.

When the time came, the four who would be in the restaurant had as much in the way of weapons and body armour as they could cover up, and Emma and Jeff were in the van with Bry, Ellie and Emma, monitoring the feeds from the cameras and mics that the other four were wearing. They were also scanning all communications channels to pick up any talk that might indicate a strike team waiting to move in. When the Lamborghini pulled up to the front door, the doormen rushing up to open the door for the stunning blonde in the passenger seat fell back in fear at the menacing look in the eye of the driver as he came around to open the door and hand her out of the car himself, giving her a soft kiss when she stood before him.

When the couple had gone inside, they all breathed a sigh of relief, and two of them rushed off to change their shorts. Between that look and the implied threat in the way the keys had impacted dead centre in the chest of the valet behind him that he'd thrown them at without looking, none of the valets wanted to move the Lamborghini, for fear of what would happen if there was the slightest scratch on the car when he got it back.

Both Sarah and Chuck had seen her father scampering off as they arrived, as he'd been waiting to check them out as they turned up, just as they knew he would. Sarah knew that helping her out of the car and kissing her wasn't part of the show for her father though, that was just Chuck being Chuck, and that brought a glow up from deep inside of her.

They heard Emma and Ellie's scorn when they saw Jack hurrying importantly towards the couple, dressed in a brand new Armani suit, as they all knew what his play would be. He didn't disappoint. "Phew, I didn't think I was going to make it, that last meeting ran way over! You look great Darlin', how's my little girl?"

The training that had fooled thousands of men over the past nineteen years didn't fail Sarah now. "Dad, I'd like you to meet the man in my life, Charlie Frost. Charlie, this is my Dad, Jack Burton."

Jack could hear the register bells ringing as he took in this guy, the Lamborghini, the way he casually wore that Armani suit and high end Cartier watch as if it were an everyday occurrence, his Ivy League accent, he just screamed money. For that matter so did his daughter, that Chanel outfit wasn't anything she could ever afford with a regular job.

He got angry at that, as her claims of being out of the game were obviously just an attempt to keep him away from the payday that he so richly deserved after what he'd been put through. He was seething as he vowed that he'd milk this guy for everything he could, and his daughter wouldn't be able to do anything to stop him!

Chuck held his rage in as he politely greeted Jack and shook his hand, apologising for being late and suggesting that they head up to the restaurant. Part of the reason that Sarah stretched up on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek and then fuss over wiping the lipstick off was to cover up her laughter. She was laughing at the fact that her father's arrogance had made him miss the fact that Chuck had just called him out on his 'just made it because my important meeting ran over' excuse by pointing out that they had in fact been over ten minutes late and he'd obviously timed it to rush to meet them as they arrived.

Once seated in the restaurant, this continued, and she kicked Chuck under the table a few times to try and stop him from making her laugh by subtly correcting her father's pronunciation when he was ordering, and changed the orders for the two of them (after checking with her, of course) away from the most expensive items that Jack was self importantly ordering for the whole table. Even Jack managed to pick up on the respect that this Charlie's changes were getting from the wait staff, as it was obvious that his selections were better than the most expensive items.

The way the two of them were discussing how much better the items on the menu were where they originated and they used the freshest ingredients also told him that they travelled a lot, so he gave up on trying to impress his daughter's mark with money, especially after he asked if he used his own jet for travelling and Chuck shrugged. "Yeah, it's much easier that way, it's generally only the two of us and the staff, and maybe some friends, so we use the G550 and leave the bigger jets for larger groups. The little G550 is also handier because we can use smaller airstrips, you know?"

That made it hard for Jack to keep the gleam from his eye as he thought of how much he could fleece this guy for. "Oh yeah, I prefer the bigger jets myself, but it makes sense to use the smaller ones, especially now that it takes us longer to get the money together to do big deals with, what with the way we've had to tuck it away with this Global Financial Crisis trouble."

Chuck nodded and leant over to kiss Sarah, because they were both fighting not to laugh, her father thought himself a master conman and he was telegraphing his moves so obviously as that? The kiss went longer because of their reaction to what they heard Emma say tearfully over the radio. "I married that? God, what sort of fool was I?" They heard Ellie and Bry trying to comfort her and were heart warmed when Bry obviously pulled her into his arms and reminded her of what he'd married in Lenny. Sarah whispered into her mic. "Don't let that one go Mama!"

She didn't see the 'how did she know?' look that passed between the couple, or hear the explanation because Anna muted the mics in the van before she spoke. "Chuck, when he suggested that Emma come up and stay with us until we knew she was was safe, he said that she could stay with Ellie or Bry, and of course Sarah saw straight through him and demanded an explanation. He isn't able to say no to her so he told her what noble idiots you've been, especially _you_ Bry, for keeping yourselves apart. He also told her about the fact that Kim would love to have Emma as a stepmother, which only the two of you don't seem to understand." With that, she unmuted the mics and went back to doing her job as they stared at her in shock. Their shock wasn't diminished by Ellie kissing both of them and adding with a smile. "You _know_ they're right!"

Jack changed his tack when it was obvious that a rich and important act wouldn't impress this guy, so he changed to being an adventurous self made entrepreneur. He brought up stories of what he'd done as a single dad, trying to make a place for him and his daughter, obviously modifying the stories to portray the cons as adventurous business deals and covering up what he'd done to his daughter. His problem was that he was only focusing on 'Charlie' and didn't see Sarah's mounting anger and aggravation until she blew.

"Yeah Dad, it was a wonderful time! I really enjoyed having dirty old men trying to get their hands into my pants from before I was eight, squeezing my bottom, and my breasts too as soon as they started to become noticeable. And I loved the way they kept trying to get me to come back to their rooms with them to give me a _present_! The only one who was having a great time back then was _you_ , you bastard, so stop playing around and tell me just what you're here for!"

He did a fairly credible job of pretending to look shocked "Darlin' you should have told me, I never would have let that happen to you if I'd known!"

"Don't you fucking dare pretend that you didn't know what was going on! The main reason you took me to those places was use me to try and entice those perverts into working with you on your cons, you knew what they were doing and you encouraged it! I know that because a few of them told me about just what you'd promised them to get them to come in on the cons after I'd hurt them for what they tried to do to me!"

Chuck held up a hand to stop Carina and Casey as he tried to comfort Sarah. When she had control of herself she kissed him again, whispering "I love you!" before she turned to her father and addressed him with rage and revulsion. "I told you to tell me what you're here for!"

He gave up the act then and spoke to her harshly in Polish, as he was sure that no-one but the two of them would know that language. " _I am here to get what you owe me! I_ _just_ _spent over ten years in prison, getting terrible things done to me!_ _That was_ _ **your**_ _fault because_ _you insisted on stopping_ _there_ _to finish school,_ _with your_ _stupid ideas about going to university! I need money to get set up to work again, so you will get that money for me from_ _ **him**_ _,_ _five_ _million_ _might_ _be enough to start but_ _ten_ _million would be better, and then you are going to come with me to work with me again. This new look_ _you have going_ _will make it eas_ _ier_ _to separate rich men from their money,_ _and with that seed money we can get access to billionaires_ _. Do not look at me like that! If you do not do_ _exactly_ _as I say I will tell him things about you that will make him wish that he never saw you!….."_

Focussing on Sarah, Jack hadn't noticed when Chuck reached casually across the table and took his hand, apparently to calm him down. What Chuck actually did was dig into a nerve point, and the pain shooting up his arm was quite enough to cut off the tirade of such a weak man. The pain was strong enough to stop Jack from noticing at first that Chuck was also speaking Polish.

 _" _You really are an idiot Uncle Joe, I look enough like Dad that only a village idiot could have missed it! And could we have made my name any more obvious, come on, Charlie Frost? Surely you have n__ _ _o__ _ _t forgotten Mom Uncle Joe, Mary Kowalski? Frost?"__

That made Jack stop and stare at him in horror, oh yeah, he could see it now, he had Stephen and Mary Kowalski's features and the eyes of a killer, this was Frost's son alright!

Chuck smiled grimly as Jack almost fainted in fright. _"_ _Yes, I thought you would remember Mom. You pathetic worm, Samantha does not owe you anything! In fact it is her right to exact suitable punishment on you for_ _what she was forced to endure because of your stupidity and greed!'_ Jack banged his other hand angrily on the table at that and shouted _'You do not know the disgusting things that were done to me in_ _that_ _prison,_ _all_ _because SHE wanted to go to university!"_

Chuck leant over the table and shouted in his face. " _I do not care! Anything you may have had to put up with was nothing but than a tiny fraction of what Samant_ _h_ _a was forced to go through! And you_ _were_ _caught because you were too arrogant and stupid to honour your promise to stop running cons for one_ _school_ _year,_ _it was not for anything Samantha did!_ _She asked you for just one_ _school_ _year so that she could_ _have a chance to make herself_ _a decent life and you fucking promised to give her that! But it was not even half of that before you started trying to run cons again, was it? What_ _i_ _s_ _worse is the fact that_ _you did it all behind her back and_ _ **then**_ _gave her up to_ _the fucking CIA!_ _ **Y**_ _ **ou**_ _have_ _cause_ _d_ _of all the pain and horror that my Samant_ _h_ _a has gone through and I desperately want to kill you slowly and painfully for that but I_ _can_ _not deny her her right to extract justice from you for what you have done to her herself!"_

Jack couldn't look away, Chuck's gaze held him mesmerised, just as a snake's prey is frozen in fear. Looking into Chuck's eyes like this, Jack soiled himself, because this was more than a killer, he'd seen men with eyes like this a number of times over the last thirty years and he'd seen what happened to anyone who opposed them. None survived, some may have lived but they suffered more than the ones who died.

Chuck caught Casey and Carina heading off the people who were coming to stop the shouting match in a foreign language and forced himself to calm down. He also noted that Jack was bleeding, as in his rage he'd pushed his thumb right into his wrist at the nerve point, so he threw him a napkin to stem the bleeding as he sat back and continued.

 _"_ _This is how it is going to go Uncle Joe, when we leave here, you will forget Samantha's number and you will never attempt to contact Samantha or anyone else in our family ever again. Furthermore, you will **never** say a single word about anyone in the family to anyone. You will also go straight and try to make an honest living with a normal job. Do you know why Uncle Joe? The reason that you will do exactly as I say is that as soon as I get home tonight I will be reactivating the CIA's termination order on you and linking every single alias and image that has ever been associated with you in every law enforcement database around the world, I will link in every con and other thing that you've ever done, and I may add in others that are similar. I'll also add a few others in to make it clear what a danger to society you are. As you've proven that you are a few steps below a village idiot, I'll explain this to you more simply."_

 _"If you_ _ever_ _do_ _ **anything**_ _at all to make the Police look at you, speed, run a red light, park in the wrong place, anything, no matter where you are, you will be arrested. When you are arrested, they will find out what a d_ _anger_ _to society you are and you will be thrown straight into prison to protect_ _good people_ _from you._ _You will also show up on the CIA's radar when that happens so they will see the termination order._ _Do you understand me Uncle J_ _oe_ _?"_

Jack nodded frantically at that. Chuck and Sarah looked up and nodded as Casey and Carina came up to put their hands on their shoulders, indicating that it was time to go.

' _So th_ _at_ _is_ _how it will go_ _Uncle J_ _oe_ _, you will_ _ **never**_ _try to contact or say anything about Samant_ _h_ _a or anyone else in the family_ _ **ever**_ _again. You will_ _also_ _go straight and make sure you never give the Police any reason to look at you, and you will_ _try to_ _ensure that Samant_ _h_ _a and I never have any reason to think about you ever again. If you fail to meet any one of these requirements,_ _you better hope the CIA gets to you first, because otherwise_ _I will come after you, and I can assure you that I will find you. When I do, no matter how far you run or where you hide, even if you're in the most secure prison in the world, I will get to you, and I will end you, so slowly and painfully that you'_ _ll be_ _begging to die_ _a long time before you do_ _. Do you understand?'_

Jack just responded with a gasping, horrified _"_ _Yes_ _!"_

Chuck looked at Sarah to ask if she wanted to add anything and she smiled grimly " _One more thing_ _ **D**_ _ **addy**_ _, I know that you're afraid of Auntie Mary?"_ He nodded frantically again " _Well you should know that Charlie and I? We're much more dangerous than Auntie Mary ever was, so don't think for a minute that Charlie wouldn't be able to do what he's promised you, because I can assure you, that wasn't a threat, that was a promise!"_

With that, Chuck put his arm around her and they walked out of the restaurant with Casey and Carina. When they saw the two couples heading for the door, the valets scrambled to get the Lamborghini and Sarah's Porsche and bring them up as quickly as they could without risking scratching them, as Chuck looked even scarier now than he had when he arrived.

Jack was still sitting at the table, shaking, after they'd left the hotel, but he was requested quite forcefully to leave, because the smell was offending other patrons. He'd hardly gotten back to his room and cleaned himself up before he saw the police cars pulling up to the front of the hotel. Knowing that they'd be here about what happened in the restaurant, so they'd be coming to his room any minute, he hurriedly threw everything into his bags and ran out by the back stairs to the hotel's parking garage, jumping into the car and getting out of there as quickly as he could without attracting the cops' attention.

Back at the Warehouse, Sarah and Emma fell into each other's arm to comfort each other. Chuck was hugged and kissed by the girls and hugged by the guys, but he was still angry so he gave in and told Uncle Bry what he'd been wanting to say to him for over five years.

"Get your head out of your arse and forget about that bitch you married! Kim, Carina, Auntie Em and Sarah all love you and you owe it to them and yourself to stop hanging onto the one who dumped you as soon as it wasn't convenient. Shit Uncle Bry, you know as well as we do that she was screwing that bastard before she told you she wanted a divorce, she made that obvious by the way she married him the minute the divorce came through! Auntie Em's worth ten times what that bitch is! And for that matter, I'd love to call you my father-in-law too!"

Sarah and Emma had stopped and stared with everyone else when Chuck went off at Bry. Sarah broke off to go after Chuck when he stomped away in anger, but stopped to hug and kiss Bry as she said. "He's right, and just for the record, I'd love to have you as a stepfather."

She didn't stop to look at how Bry or her mother reacted to that, but she had a pretty good idea what she would have seen if she did.


	11. Suburbia

**I had to go back to the start to fix some elapsed times and dates. As part of that, Chuck's Navy and other ranks have been adjusted slightly. I've also added Charlene 'Charly' Baltimore to the original Spooks after I watched The Long Kiss Good Night again and added her into the group of Langston, Bry and Mary who made up the nucleus of the Spooks, as another tough woman can't hurt.**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess story.**

Silver lake – December 2008

Chuck insisted that Auntie Em had to stay with them in the secure apartments until they were sure that there was no-one waiting to grab her, either to use as a hostage against Sarah or because Jack gave her up to the CIA to get mileage with them. He also did what he told Jack he would to his records, so if he got himself caught again he'd be in deep shit.

Bry had stared after Chuck and Sarah until they disappeared, then grabbed Emma's bags and took her to his apartment. They did a lot of talking that night, and he went to see Kim the next day. He wasn't too surprised to find that Chuck was right about what her opinion of him marrying Emma would be, after all, he was usually right.

He also had a talk to Carina, and had to laugh when she rather bluntly said that her mother was with Roan now, so if he and Emma wanted to get together no-one had any right to complain. There was no question who's daughter she was, because that was exactly Diane would have said before she got mired in the politics of the intelligence community. He was happy to hear her say that all that really mattered was that he and Emma made each other happy, and that if Kim, as the daughter who would be most effected by this, was happy with them getting married, there was no reason for them not to go forward with this.

There was another element of this that Sarah and Carina talked over between themselves, the fact that if Sarah's mother married Carina's father, they'd be stepsisters, and they'd have another sister as well in Kim. They'd all been only children until recently, so having sisters was a culture shock, all the more so for Sarah and Carina. With the isolation of their lives to date and the intelligence community, a friendship like the two of them had was rare, so the possibility of becoming stepsisters was hard to get their heads around.

Chuck apologised to Bry about going off at him the next day, but Bry laughed and thanked him for telling him what he needed to hear, he also pointed out that Emma wasn't going back to San Diego, so they needed to tidy up her affairs down there and move everything up to Los Angeles.

A few weeks after that, the newly minted Major Noble finished his training and was sent to L.A. to be assigned to the team. Chuck had pointed out that Captain Noble would probably have similar issues to what Major Casey had had a bit over a year ago when he joined the team and found that a female doctor who was nine years younger than him matched his rank, and her supposed loser civilian brother who was twelve years younger than him actually outranked him. They'd salved Casey's pride by pushing through the promotion to Lieutenant Colonel that he deserved, and Chuck had also talked them into having the recommendation for promotion that was in the system for Rick actioned to put him in a better frame of mind when he joined the team.

Part of the reason for pushing the promotion through was that they knew that Rick was going to have enough issues with the fact that after twelve years in the Marines and cruising through the DCS Agent's training, they were going to start training him all over again to get him up to their standards, and Ellie and Anna would be doing a lot of the training, along with Bry.

Of course, a Marine Major who was being primarily trained by a doctor who was a _female_ Navy SEAL and Air Force Major, a semi-retired Army Special Forces Colonel who had been in the CIA's SOG and another female non-military operative was in for a culture shock whatever way you looked at it.

Silver Lake – February 2009

About a month after Rick arrived, they had their next major mission, it came from another one of those special purpose 'oversight' committees, this one apparently focusing on Fulcrum. When he heard that, Chuck decided to check into this committee and find out whether Larkin had been working for them or it was a solo operation to feather his own nest, but that would probably have to wait until after this mission was done. He could see that Uncle Lang was aggravated to find out that this was another operation being run by the CIA that he, as the head of the CIA, wasn't aware of but this too would have to wait to be resolved.

It was suspicious about how insistent the Fulcrum oversight Committee had been that they needed the Intersect team to look into what was going on in an operation investigating a specific suburban location, and when Chuck and Anna hacked into the records to get the full details, the state the last agent who'd been assigned to the operation was found in set off more alarm bells. They sent the man's medical records through to Leo to have Stephen and Leslie to look at them, and while Leslie had no input as he hadn't known that human testing was going on with the Intersect versions he created, Stephen had no trouble recognising the effects of Intersect testing on an incompatible subject.

That put paid to any ideas that the Fulcrum Oversight committee weren't involved in this operation, and answered the question of why they'd insisted that the Intersect team, and therefore the Human Intersect, be sent in for this. Even though it was obvious that this was a set-up, the team couldn't refuse the assignment without tipping their hand, so they had to work out how to sway the odds in their favour. Langston and Diane organised for a large removalist truck to justify the fact that Carina was there to help Sarah get things unpacked and set up, and Casey was there as a handyman that they brought in to fix the hundred and one things that they weren't happy about, so Sarah wasn't there by herself.

It was obvious that the other side weren't going to just sit around and wait for a good opportunity though, because Sarah called Chuck after lunch on the first day to get him to pick up the meat and other things that they'd need to throw a getting to know you barbecue for the street. It was obvious from the way she was talking that the neighbours were right there when she called, but Carina obviously managed to head them off for a minute because she suddenly dropped the act.

"They're obviously up to something as they've demanded that we throw this barbecue tonight to try and get us alone, so make sure you bring Rick with you as Carina's husband, and I think we need those support teams nearby as well. They'll be pissed about Carina, Rick and Casey being there at the barbecue, but hopefully their presence will be enough to make them wait for a better chance to get us alone. They're obviously after you, but I think we need to have the backup teams close enough to get here in time in case they decide to test their shit on me and the others as well. I want to have my time with you, but while I think you'll be fine with their Intersect, I'm not so confident for myself. Shit, the bitches are coming back, get here as soon as you can, I love you!"

Chuck hardly had enough time to say. "I love you!" before she cut the call. They had already notified Uncle Billy at the FBI that they would need at least one strike team no more than ten minutes out until this was finished. Obviously, Bry, Ellie, Anna and Jeff would also be less than ten minutes away and would be monitoring the bugs and trackers that all of them who were in there were wearing.

Sarah's tone of voice was enough to make Chuck grab Rick and head straight to the house as soon as the arrangements were made with Uncle Billy. It would be easy enough to argue that with the barbecue that night, they needed the men to help get the house ready. The rest of the team headed out at the same time, because the situation was obviously worse than they'd originally believed it to be. Casey did manage to ease the tension a little when he called Rick to remind him _not_ to get too enthusiastic when he greeted 'his' wife on arrival. It was obvious that he was mostly joking, so it helped give them a much needed laugh before they arrived.

* * *

Having Chuck and Rick there to help with the heavy lifting also gave them the excuse to kick the neighbour wives out so that they could concentrate on getting the house straightened up in time for the barbecue, which gave them a chance to talk. They had, of course, swept the house for bugs as soon as they arrived and they weren't at all surprised to find a few when they swept it again after they kicked the neighbours out, but there was nothing to stop them talking in rooms away from the bugs.

The general consensus was that these people were just wrong. The women who had been coming in and out all day were treating Sarah like a long lost sister, but totally ignored Carina and Casey. Even if they were stupid enough to accept the argument of 'we want to get to know our new neighbour', any credibility flew out the window when these supposedly neglected housewives didn't bother looking at the 'handyman' who looked damned good in the small, tight shorts and tight T-shirt he was wearing.

Actually, it was more a case of 'didn't look twice', because he, Sarah and Carina had seen a flash of recognition from the first few women, but now they were studiously ignoring him. The three had also noted flashes of recognition when they looked at Sarah, and to a lesser degree Carina, so it was obvious that they'd all been made. Sarah and Casey were quite clear and succinct about why the team had been brought here as soon as they were in a room where they could talk, because they both turned to Chuck to say. "They're after you!"

Casey deferred to Sarah as she continued. "They're obviously well enough informed to know exactly who the three of us are, but they haven't done a thing. That means that we're not what they're after. With the fact that the last agent who tried to look into them died from an Intersect Overload and the fact that they're all trying to be nice to me but ignoring the others, it's fairly obvious that we were brought here in an attempt to grab you and use you as their Intersect subject."

Chuck nodded musingly, he couldn't argue with that as it confirmed their original idea. Sarah and Casey were well known in the intelligence community, and Carina hadn't joined the team until a few months after they started. That would have made it obvious to anyone with knowledge of the team and what they did that the third member of the original team was the source of the new information that was helping them achieve far more than they had before. Anyone who understood the principles of the Intersect, such as Fulcrum, would know where that information was coming from. Nodding in agreement was pretty much the only valid answer he could give.

The barbecue confirmed everything they discussed, as the wives were all over Chuck and the husbands were all over Sarah, but they ignored Rick, who looked like a male model because he took after his mother, Casey and Carina, so the game was certainly afoot. The neighbours were certainly put out that the others were at the barbecue, even more so because their 'friends' and 'handyman' didn't leave them alone for a second. When the response to offers to help clean up after their friends left was that their friends were helping but extra help would be welcome, the offers evaporated and the neighbours left so that they could catch up with their friends.

Chuck and Sarah felt secure enough in the house that night, because Casey had changed all the locks and added security systems to all the doors and windows, and their confidence was rewarded, as nothing happened overnight. It appeared that the neighbours were on a tight time frame though, because as soon as Chuck and Sarah came out to talk to Casey about his handyman duties the next morning, all three of them were tranqued.

The sedatives in the tranq darts were so fast acting that they hardly had time to say a word, and when they were brought out of it, Chuck and Sarah were in an underground bunker. This was another problem, in and of itself, because they found out later that the entire bunker was a Faraday cage, so the signals from their bugs and trackers had disappeared as soon as they were taken down there.

Their team moved in immediately, but they had to be discrete to avoid pushing the Fulcrum agents into doing something desperate. It also took nearly half an hour for Ellie to get onto Uncle William because he was in a meeting, and the team leader for the FBI strike team wouldn't move without orders.

Because of the delay with the FBI team and the need for discretion, locating and breaching the entrance to the bunker was slow going. They were scanning for cameras and security systems and hacking into them to take them over before they entered the house where the signals from Chuck, Sarah and Casey had disappeared, and then they had to find the actual entrance to the bunker and go through the whole process again. The fact that Chuck was their best at this and they were afraid to set the Fulcrum Agents off made it take longer than they'd like.

* * *

When Chuck was brought out of the sedative, he was strapped into a chair and could move little more than his eyes. He heard the sounds of struggling nearby, and when he looked that way, he saw Sarah was tied to a chair in the next room. When he demanded to know what they were doing to his wife and what they wanted from them Sylvia, the extremely aggressive cougar from across the street that he'd been trying to ward off the night before, laughed as she said. "She's not your wife, Charles, she's a CIA Agent, so I expect that you're one too."

Brad, one of the other neighbours, answered the other half of his question as he finished strapping Chuck's head in place. "From what we're hearing, you have a very special brain Mr Carmichael, and we're hoping for great things from you, everybody else we've tried this on has failed, but if what we heard was true I believe you'll be the one who works for us."

Chuck gave up on the pretence as these people obviously knew who they were. "OK, I'll do whatever you want, but let Sarah go, please?"

Sylvia laughed again "Oh this is precious, don't tell me you've actually fallen for her? You didn't believe her when she told you that you had a future, that she cared about you, did you? Don't you know that it was all an act? You're just a job to her Charles, nothing she told you about her feelings for you was real!"

Brad sniggered, saying. "Don't worry, this will help you get over her, if you survive." He fitted the apparatus to force Chuck's eyes open, and with that they all moved into the next room and closed the door.

Sylvia's so called husband started something and a number of screens dropped down in front of Chuck, Sarah was desperately trying to call out to him but Sylvia just snapped at her. "Don't bother, he can't hear you."

Everyone in the room had put safety glasses on, and they put a pair on Sarah as well before Sylvia's husband initiated the program.

Chuck passed out when the program finished and when he slumped in the chair the Fulcrum people started screaming at Brad that he was done, his damned program was so useless that it couldn't even be handled by the Human Intersect, but then Chuck suddenly come to.

At that they all rushed into the room and Sylvia asked. "Do you know where you are Charles?"

Chuck played along "Beneath the Meadow Branch subdivision in a Fulcrum lab that was built to pursue the Fulcrum initiative."

"What initiative?"

"To properly develop the Intersect program."

Brad was pretty much jumping up and down as he shouted. "It worked!", but Sylvia looked calculating and asked. "Do you mind if we test your wife next?"

Chuck looked at her with a confused expression as he said "Wife? I don't have a wife."

They were all slapping each other on the back as they got him out of the chair and started strapping Sarah into it.

Chuck was planning how to take them all out while they were occupied and get Sarah the hell out of there, but just before he moved he saw Casey at the control console in the next room.

Chuck had his back to the Fulcrum Agents, so he winked back at him when Casey signalled that he was getting ready to initiate the program, turning to say "Before you start, I'd like to tell Agent Walker something."

Sylvia sniggered "Agent Walker, now we have a name."

Chuck leaned in close to her and whispered "Close your eyes". Knowing him, Sarah shot a look over his shoulder to see Casey at the console with the safety glasses on and squeezed her eyes shut tight. Chuck also pulled her face into his chest to ensure that she was blocked from seeing any of the images.

As soon as he saw Chuck pull Sarah's face into his chest, Casey activated the program.

Just to be safe, Chuck squeezed his eyes shut too, so he only heard the cries and crashing going on around him, but as soon as the flickering through his eyelids stopped, he opened his eyes to look around and saw all the Fulcrum people laying twisted on the floor, most not moving.

When he asked Sarah if she was OK as he was unstrapping her, her response was "Yeah, are you?", breathing a sigh of relief when he said "Yeah, I think so". As soon as she was free, she leapt into his arms.

Casey came into the room to make sure that they were OK, and Chuck noted his left thumb as he answered. "Yeah, we're OK, but you actually broke your thumb to get out of the cuffs? I didn't think anyone did that."

That made Casey look at his hand and grimace. "Yeah, I know why now, but it did the job and got me free to act, so I suppose it was worth it. The fact that I was still half out of it helped."

They checked for anyone else in the bunker, but apparently everyone had been in the room to watch the show, so they'd all been taken out by their own Intersect. Sarah grabbed a first aid kit and started strapping up Casey's hand while Chuck went through the bunker and systems to locate and extract everything to do with the Intersect. Any drives were extracted and went into the bags that they'd take with them with the storage devices and small equipment he collected, while anything that they couldn't take with them was destroyed. He'd finished this by the time that Anna and Jeff disabled the bunker's security controls and the team breached the bunker, and after Ellie redid Casey's hand to stabilise it properly, they left.

As soon as they got in and found that Chuck, Sarah and Casey were OK, Bry went back up to send the FBI strike team off to sweep the rest of the houses in the street and take anyone they found into custody, warning them that some may be innocent civilians, but the majority were domestic terrorists. After Ellie had re-strapped his hand and administered a local anaesthetic to make the pain in his hand more manageable, Casey stayed and helped them search the houses in the street for anything else related to the Intersect or Fulcrum, then they took everything back to the Warehouse.

* * *

The reports that went back to the Fulcrum Oversight Committee stated that Casey had gotten free and signalled Chuck and Sarah in time for them to protect themselves before he set off what the Fulcrum people had been planning to run on them. When they saw the effect that it had had on the unprotected Fulcrum people, they'd gone through and destroyed everything in that Bunker, as something like that couldn't be good.

They weren't ignoring the elephant in the room, and investigations into the Fulcrum Oversight Committee were under way, as they now had ample proof that these people had intentionally sent the only known viable host into Fulcrum's hands to test their Intersect on, but they weren't about to let them dictate what they were going to do.

Sarah and Ellie's focus at that point was finding out what the hell the Fulcrum Intersect had done to Chuck, but Chuck's was working out what the hell they could do with the Fulcrum Intersect, because while the Fulcrum Intersect was based on what Stephen and Leslie had developed, there were some notable differences from the CIA version. For all that Brad White had appeared to be a bumbling fool, he had actually made some significant advances to the Intersect's functions, and in Chuck's opinion the more severe effects on incompatible hosts were more related to the fact that the program had been expanded and now interfaced with more areas of the human brain than failures in the actual programming.

Once they'd determined that it hadn't done him any appreciable harm, Chuck managed to get his wife and sister to focus on what they'd been working on before they were roped into this assignment, the weddings. As most of the family and people they knew were back East, and it cut the time to get Mary there, all three couples had agreed to have the weddings on the east coast. Roan had used his charm and connections to get them the use of a charming and very private plantation estate not too far from D.C. for the wedding venue.

Silver Lake – March 2009

The couples had no trouble agreeing to having the same wedding party for all three weddings, the only difference being that Emma and Bry would added in their wedding as they were the mother and father of the bride in the other two weddings. Carina was the maid of honour in Sarah's wedding and Sarah was the maid and matron of honour in the other two weddings, which made Casey the best man in Chuck's wedding and Chuck the best man in the other two weddings. Kim and Ellie completed the bride's maids in the three weddings, and Rick was paired up with Ellie, while a young Special Forces Major who became part of the family after working closely with Chuck, Bry, Ellie and Anna for nearly a decade was paired up with Kim, because she knew Walter and was comfortable with him.

Roan had also talked Vera Wang into handling everything for the weddings, and the heads of the Army, Navy and Marines were cursing him for that, because Vera was a woman on a mission and she wasn't about to let their regulations and previous decisions interfere with her vision for the weddings. The fact that they had the Secretary of Defense's full support meant that the Army, Navy and Marines had to give in to Vera, and they got a dispensation to reactivate and use fully tailored dress whites for the Army and Marine uniforms, as well as Chuck's Navy uniform.

The cost of these dispensations was to add the Chief of Staff of the Army, Chief of Naval Operations, Commandant of the Marine Corps, Secretary of the Army and Secretary of the Navy, as well as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the guest list with their partners. They'd already had the Secretary of Defense and the current and previous Commanders of Special Operations Command included as part of the military.

The intelligence side was officially represented by the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the NSA and Uncle Lang as the Director of the CIA, as well as the CIA's Deputy Director for Analysis, Uncle Jack, the Director of the National Clandestine Service, Jane Bentley and the FBI's Executive Assistant Director for National Security Branch, Uncle Will who were all part of the family. And of course they had Auntie Di and Uncle Roan.

Plantation in Virginia – May 2009

Mary flew in about an hour before the weddings, and she'd have to leave as soon as the reception was finished to get back before she was missed, but she was able to be there for her son and best friends' weddings, so it was well worth it to her.

Most of the rest of the guest list was made up of Intelligence and Special Ops people from around the world who were part of the family or who had worked with Bry, Chuck and Ellie over the years. The only other person that Sarah and Carina invited was Zondra Rizzo, because she'd been a very big part of their lives and she still meant a lot to them, even if they weren't sure that they could trust her any more. They'd been the three musketeers for two years and had done incredible things together, and the falling out they'd had over the doubts about each other at the end couldn't erase that.

The family were very excited to meet Casey's special guests, because they were his mother and daughter. The family had made it possible for him to contact his mother safely after he'd been accepted as part of the Spooks, and he'd kept in contact with her since then. She'd kept these contacts from his brothers because her Johnny Boy was the only one in the family who'd followed in his Marine hero father's footsteps. His brothers were small town merchants and farmers who she didn't feel she could trust to keep quiet about the fact that their supposedly dead brother was in fact, alive and living a different life.

When her Johnny Boy had first contacted her she had big news for him as well though because Kathleen, the fiancé that he'd left behind when he 'died' had been pregnant, but their last phone call had been cut off before she could tell him about the pregnancy. Kathleen had told his parents that they were going to be grandparents at his funeral, but she'd been sent away in disgrace to distant relatives in California soon after that when her church going family found out that she was planning on having her dead fiancé's child out of wedlock.

After his mother told Casey about Kathleen and the baby, the family had tracked her down for him. She'd found herself a good man who'd married her to be a father for her baby and they were happy, but Diane had convinced him that Kathleen deserved to know the truth, that he was alive and why he'd left her, even if she didn't choose to let him into their daughter's life. Kathleen had been understandably angry to find out that he was alive after everything she'd been forced to go through alone, but she'd told Alexandra about her father when she started middle school, and he'd been able to start building a relationship with her then. Once he was assigned to the Intersect team and based in L.A. they managed to improve their relationship and he now saw her regularly, but Carina was the only other one in the family who'd met her before the proper wedding.

When Johanna, Casey's mother, was greeted by Chuck in his dress whites and she saw his Navy Commander rank, SEAL trident etc and medal ribbons, she understood that her Johnny was connected to exceptional people. Johanna's brain and memory was sharper than most's and Alex, Johnny's father, had explained to her about what the medals that he and other heroes had received in the wars in Vietnam, Lebanon and Granada meant. He didn't get to tell her about the medal he received in Panama because he'd died getting it, but she'd found out what that one meant too.

That was why she was quite capable of reading the rank, medals and insignia of this charming young man and knew that they shouldn't be possible, especially for someone his age, but she also knew that her Johnny could never respect anyone who claimed any of these without earning them and he definitely _did_ respect this Chuck, so that was proof enough for her that this young man was truly exceptional. The older man, Bry, was almost as impressive, but while he outranked both Johnny and Chuck and was Special Forces, he didn't have some of the medals that Chuck had and he was old enough that him being a full Colonel wasn't so surprising. Chuck and Bry were taken aback by the salutes she gave them, but they returned the salutes with pride because the look in her eye and her husband's ribbons that she was wearing told them that she knew what she was saluting.

When Sarah introduced Zondra to Chuck, Zondra had had enough to do with special operations groups to recognise some of his medal ribbons and what he was as well. Luckily she looked at Sarah for an explanation just as Chuck had a massive information flash on her, so Sarah made sure she held her attention until he'd composed himself. When he'd settled down, Chuck whispered in Sarah's ear that they had to talk to Zondra before she left. The look that Sarah gave him at that was worried, but he shook his head with a smile and whispered in her ear. "It wasn't her!"

* * *

As soon as Auntie Charly and Caitlin arrived, Charly swept past everyone to pick up Sarah and swing her around as if she was a little girl, reminding Sarah what an incredibly strong woman she'd always been. Once she'd stopped babbling about. "I can't believe that you're back! Do you know how devastated my namesake was without you?" Charly remembered to introduce her own daughter to Sarah, and part of that introduction made them all laugh.

"You remember that Charlie was named after me, don't you Katie?' Caitlin gave a weary nod at that, as she'd been told that by everyone in the family that she'd met. "Well I used Samantha's name for my identity on that last operation where I was shot in the head and forgot everything because I loved this little girl, so I couldn't miss their wedding after I gave my name to one of them and took my new name from the other, could I?"

Of course, things were rarely simple in the Spook family, and Sarah could read Ellie well enough to ask her what was going on when Auntie Charly and Caitlin disappeared as quickly as they arrived. Ellie looked at her, obviously debating telling her something for about a minute before she pulled her aside. "Auntie Charly is taking Katie to meet her birth father, Uncle Will. They were together before she went off on that last mission, and they've had the DNA tests to confirm paternity. The thing is, while Uncle Will is a great man, he's not really father material. He sleeps around all the time like Uncle Roan and he's OK with that, but he agreed with Auntie Charly that Hal, the guy she was engaged to when she got her memory back, would make a much better father for Katie than he could."

"Hal had been a defacto father to Katie for over two years at that point. Auntie Charly told him the whole story about who Katie's father was and what they'd agreed was best for her, and Hal loved her and Katie enough to go through with the wedding. They told Katie about who her actual father was and what they'd decided when she was old enough to understand, but by then she saw it as being disloyal to Hal, her father, to go chasing after the man who'd done nothing more than provide the sperm that she was conceived with, so she didn't want to meet him. When they were invited to the weddings though, Hal didn't really want to see more of this side of Auntie Charly's life, so he suggested that this would be a good opportunity for Katie to meet her birth father, and that's what she's doing now."

Sarah shook her head as she looked at Ellie. "Damn! This extended family of our's has screwed up relationships! Look, I can see that you're worried about Katie and now that you've told me I am too, so why don't you go and make sure she's OK? Carina can't get away before the ceremony, but Rick knows how it feels to meet your father after you were raised with no idea who he is too, so he might be able to help her handle this."

Ellie beamed at her and pulled her into one of her signature bone crushing hugs. "If I hadn't loved you from the day you were born Sammie, that would have made me love you! That's a great idea, I'll grab Rick and go find Katie." She gave Sarah another quick hug and took off. They were both back before the ceremonies began and Ellie went straight to Sarah and gave her another hug, saying that being able to talk to someone who understood how it felt after she met Uncle Will had helped Katie get her head around it and she was fine now. Sarah didn't have a chance to talk to Katie before her wedding, but as Bry was walking her up the aisle, Katie caught her eye and mouthed 'Thank you!' at her with a smile, so Ellie had obviously told her that it had been Sarah's idea. She smiled back at her and thought to herself that this wasn't a bad family to be part of at all.

* * *

Bry and Emma were married first, so that Bry would officially be the father of the bride when he gave Sarah away, Chuck and Sarah were married next, and finally Casey and Carina. As they were all military weddings, they all had sabre arches, but there were quite a few raised eyebrows when Bry and Chuck had separate sabre arches from the Army, Navy and Marines, and there were a few Air Force officers in there as well. Anyone who asked questions was firmly told that Colonel Mills and Commander Carmichael had been taking part in Special Operations missions across all of the services for the past thirteen years and their comrades in arms had wanted to honour them properly.

Aside from some of the military trappings, the weddings were remarkably simple for the importance of their guest lists, but that didn't stop them being elegantly lovely, Vera's ruling the presentation with an iron fist had created imagery that was unrivalled. The grooms and groom's men were all close to six foot four and the brides and bride's maids were all close to five foot nine, except for Emma who was five or six inches shorter. Getting the dispensations to use the Army and Marine discontinued dress whites locked the theme into a white wedding, so the bride's maids dresses were made in ivory, as was the bunting, and the flowers were gardenias, Sarah's favourites.

The reception was a casual affair, with the couples sitting with the guests and talking when they weren't dancing, but Chuck had the least time off the dance floor, because most of the guys were too intimidated by him, Bry and Casey to ask Sarah, Carina, Emma, Ellie or Kim to dance (or Alex for that matter). On the other hand Sarah and the other brides gave the women a free hand and Chuck in particular had a long line of family members and others to dance with. Sarah exercised her wifely prerogative fairly often and cut in, but that didn't get Chuck off the dance floor, it just let him dance with his bride.

On top of everything else, Chuck wanted to spend as much time as possible with his mother before she had to fly back to Moscow, and half of their discussions would have shocked most who heard them, as they were talking about what she had to put up with from Volkoff and how things were progressing on getting her to the position where they could extract her. Mary also wanted to know how Stephen was coming along and what was going on between Ellie and Rick as Langston hadn't noticed anything before she asked him about it and Ellie wouldn't tell her anything.

Mary wasn't crazy enough to try and pry anything out of Rick directly because she knew quite well that Ellie's temper was a match for her's and interrogating the man that she had an inkling might be her prospective son-in-law would most probably start world war three. She was less than satisfied with Chuck's response as all she got out of him pretty much what Ellie had told her. "Ellie is handling a lot of Rick's training so they're spending much of their time together. They enjoy each other's company and they're comfortable with each other." Chuck wasn't about to tell his mother that they weren't awake for all of the time they spent together, that was something for Ellie to tell her if and when she chose to.

* * *

When they'd seen Mary off to the airstrip to be flown back to Moscow in their G550, they concentrated on spending time with the others that they rarely had a chance to talk to, such as Auntie Charly and Caitlin, their guests from overseas and the ones who were normally in deep cover. As things started to wind down, Chuck, Sarah, Carina and Casey took Zondra off to a quiet room and Chuck filled them in on what he'd gotten from the flash about Zondra, without going into detail about where the information had come from, of course.

The issue that had broken up the CAT Squad after two years of extremely effective operations was the fact that their missions suddenly started failing, and whenever they hit a location, it would either be cleaned out, or a trap so it was obvious that someone in the group was a traitor. At first they were looking at their support teams, but few of them had enough access to what they were planning to give up as much information as the other side were obviously getting.

They also had the situation that whenever they started looking at someone on the support teams as likely suspect, he'd be the first in the door the next time they walked into a trap and he'd get killed. This of course led to heightened suspicion within the CAT Squad itself and they started investigating each other. That was how Sarah found the specialised communications device hidden in the heel of one of Zondra's boots and she basically went to town on Zondra without giving her a chance to offer anything to refute what the evidence appeared to be saying.

Zondra was investigated and cleared but Sarah couldn't let it go and it destroyed their friendship. When Carina had been forced to choose between the two of them, she went with her best friend, Sarah.

Chuck spent time going through Sarah's history of betrayal by her father and others she was close to before he brought up the evidence that he'd gotten from the Intersect. Yes, the device was hidden in Zondra's boot, but she had shared an apartment and shoe size with Amy, the last member of the CAT Squad, and Amy had always been borrowing her things.

Both Sarah and Carina had almost perfect recall, so Chuck asked them who had been wearing the boots in question before they'd been betrayed each time. Zondra's eyes widened as she went through the same exercise and realised what he was getting at before the others did, but she waited for them to say it. Sarah and then Carina matched Zondra's reaction when they went through the images in their minds and when they were convinced, Sarah looked at Carina and spat out venomously. "It was Amy!" Carina just nodded grimly.

After Sarah had apologised to Zondra and they'd made up, Zondra turned to Chuck with the obvious question. "How the hell did you find that when no-one else could?"

Chuck shrugged. "I've looked into Sarah's history to see what happened to her, and the period in the CATS was significant for her. I've got almost perfect recall too, so everything I researched is up here." He tapped his temple. "When I saw your face, I recalled the images of you and started noting that you weren't the one wearing those boots in the images I was seeing. At a guess I'd say that she was wearing your boots when they gave her the device and they just modified the heel to take it, unless she did it deliberately to throw suspicion on you."

The three women snorted at that and Sarah shook her head with a smile. "Oh no Baby, you wouldn't even suggest that if you'd ever met that brainless bimbo, if it was deliberate, someone else thought of it."

She looked around and asked. "So where do we go from here?"

Chuck responded. "I expect that she was doing this for money, so the best way to shut her down will be to get proof of the payments she was receiving. We should look for payments made to Zondra as well, in case they tried to set up evidence to show that she was the one who was involved." He looked at Zondra, asking her permission to do this, and she nodded but asked.

"Any money would be in secure off-shore tax havens, how could you get into their records? And for that matter, the CAT Squad records were sealed, how the hell did you get into them?"

It was Chuck's turn to snort. "Well _sealed_ is debatable, we have people who can get into most systems on our team."

Sarah punched him in the arm and called him an idiot before addressing Zondra. "Do you remember hearing about the hacker called the Piranha?"

"Yeah, your tech guys were raving about him when he got that information for us on the Gentle Hand….Wait, do you have access to _him_?"

Sarah grinned. "You could say that." and hooked her thumb at Chuck.

Zondra's eyes widened. "You're shitting me, _he's_ the Piranha, the tech god? I thought he was some bad arse special ops guy, or at least that's what those medals the Commander has and all the SEAL, Special Forces and SOG guys at the wedding were saying?"

Casey nodded "He is, both, I've seen enough in the last year and a half to convince me that the stories about Mowgli are all true, and the Piranha as well."

Zondra stared at Chuck before turning to Sarah. "You're married to Mowgli, the one we were all pretty much sure was just a legend when we were discussing him in Paris, and he just happens to be the Piranha, the one all the propeller heads regard as their god, as well? What world have I stepped into here Blondie?"

Sarah looked at Chuck and Carina and they both nodded. "It gets better, you met Chuck's Mom?" Zondra nodded hesitantly. "She's the CIA's legendary Frost. And did you pay attention to the name that Carina used in her wedding?"

Zondra looked confused for a moment and then her eyes widened. "No?" Sarah nodded. "Yep, Auntie Di fell apart and gave her up for adoption to a nice couple when she was born because she'd been told that her father was killed on assignment, but her adopted parents were killed in a car accident soon after that and she was thrown into the foster care system and all that terrible shit she was put through. When her father came back from the assignment, he was fine, his bosses just told her he was dead to stop her asking questions, they looked for her but when they couldn't find her they believed that she died with her adopted parents. Then a few years ago Chuck came across her birth certificate buried in the DEA's files, but the DEA purposely hid her when Auntie Di tried to find her, and we only discovered her when we were assigned to help her recover a diamond from a drug trafficer. Chuck made the connections when he saw her like he just did with you. By the way, Uncle Bry is Carina's father, so we're step sisters now."

This was overwhelming Zondra, but she knew the first thing she wanted answered. "Why the fuck are you calling the General Auntie Di?"

Sarah looked at Carina and Chuck and grinned as she answered. "She was part of the original group with our parents, and she's Chuck and my Godmother but I don't remember meeting her before my father took me away. She looked out for Chuck and Ellie while they were growing up, as did Uncle Lang."

Zondra shook her head. "No! you're not telling me that _Director Graham_ is part of this too?"

"OK, I won't tell you, and I won't tell you who's son that tall gorgeous guy who's been with Ellie for most of the wedding is."

"So who's _his_ mother then, Director Bentley?"

"Don't be ridiculous, she was just a child when Rick was born, his mother was best known as Special Agent Cleopatra Jones, but she died fourteen years ago."

Zondra shook her head again. "So what's next, am I your long lost sister too?"

Sarah surprised her by hugging her, then softly said. "Only in my heart, but I'd like you to consider joining our team."

That made Zondra pull back. "What do you mean, join your team?"

"Are you happy doing what you do for the FBI? I can guarantee that you'd be working on much bigger things with us, and we could do better with another good agent on the team. More to the point, we want you back." Carina nodded at that last.

"OK, while that sounds interesting, what makes you think you can get the FBI to agree to it?"

Chuck smiled. "Uncle Billy."

Zondra just looked blankly at him. "William Graham, the FBI's Executive Assistant Director for National Security Branch, he's part of the family and he has a bit of pull in the FBI I believe?"

She drew a breath to calm herself. "You could say that." She stopped and looked at Chuck and Casey. "I can see why these two, my friends, would want to do this for me, but why are you two just going along with it?"

Casey waved to Chuck to respond, which he did with a smile. "Well for a start, knowing these two, would you try to stand in the way of them getting something they really wanted? More to the point though, Casey and I respect our wives' judgement, and we know they wouldn't suggest that you join the team unless they were confident that you were good enough to improve the team. If they had any doubts about your ability Sarah would have asked me to look into finding a way to keep you safe somewhere in the FBI."

He looked at Sarah before continuing. "As far as keeping you safe goes, we should tell you about some of the recent changes with our team. About nine months ago, we had a CIA agent come in to tell Sarah that she was assigned to work with him, and it was obvious what he planned to get out of that. We put a stop to that and set things in motion to get our team removed from the normal chain of command so that Sarah and Carina couldn't be forced to work with agents like that. Sarah's Mom told her why my Mom got married when she was pregnant with Ellie, because the old regulations meant that married women could refuse to do anything like that. The four of us went to Vegas and got married straight away, but we were waiting for the main plan to go through before we got married openly to keep that trump card up our sleeves in case we needed it. The DNI and the President got the changes through the Senate about a month and a half ago and that's why we went forward with our proper weddings. That means that if you join us, you'll be safe from being made to sleep with marks or agents for the mission."

With another glance at Sarah, he added. "We have to find the financial proof of who was being paid for betraying the CAT Squad to the Gentle Hand and properly clear your name before we can try to have you transferred across, but think about it, OK? I know that Sarah and Carina would love to have you with us."

That made Zondra cry for the first time since her mother was murdered, and Chuck squeezed her shoulder gently as he headed out to talk to the other guests who were left. When the girls came out about twenty minutes later, Sarah went straight to Chuck to give him a kiss that rivalled their wedding kiss.

 **A/N: Yeah, I know that I've used Vera Wang for the last several stories but I like her elegant designs and her personality.**


End file.
